Analysis and synthesis
by HouseFan
Summary: What happens when House has an affair with a patient? And what happens when the affair results in a pregnancy?
1. A new case

_OK, so I know you're not supposed to come up with excuses in advance, but I thought I'd just mention that english is not my first language. Also I haven't been writing fanfics for a very long time. But still. I hope you'll enjoy it, my first House-fic._

_Disclaimer: I own nothing, so don't sue._

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**A new case**

"Okey…" Chase sat down at the table, opening the journal in front of him. "So, we have a white female, Joanna Carson, aged 34, born in Akron, Ohio..."

"Blablabla, get to the symtoms!" Dr. House interrupted him. He was standing by the white board with the markers ready, waiting impatiently.

"Well, for a start, she's been feeling extremely tired for a couple of weeks, fallen asleep on the bus and not gotten of it in time, things like that," Cameron said as she sat down next to Chase putting a tray of coffee cups on the table.

"Also she's complaining about pains in her legs and arms." Foreman came over and grabbed one of the three to-go-cups.

House was writing down the symptoms on the board. "Right, so, fatigue and pain," he summed.up. "Wow, that sure narrows it down!"

"Could it be something as simple as a really severe case of anemia?" Chase suggested. Cameron looked confused. "Why would anemia cause pains in her arms and her legs?" she asked.

"Well, in many cases it gives a general feeling of discomfort. Maybe the patient interpretes the discomfort as specific pain," Chase suggested.

"Sign her up for an MRI." House was already on his way out of the room. Chase got up.

"What?!" He asked, clearly confused. House turned to face him "You heard me, an MRI. Do I have to spell it out to you?" He put on finger on his lip and faked a thoughtful look on his face. "You know what, I think I already did!" "So, you're not even going to try giving her iron and see if it helps?" Chase asked. "If a box of pills can get her better, why waste time on an MRI?" Foreman supported him.

"It's not severe anemia." House claimed. "But it'll make you two happy, run blood test as well, what do I care." He grabbed his jacket of the chair he had hung it on. "I'm going to lunch. Call me if there's any more symptoms." He was half-way out the door when he turned and looked at Chase again. "And if she's not on that MRI-list when I get back I'll make you wish you had never been born."

As the door slammed behind House, Foreman sighed deeply, and Chase fulng himself into a chair. "There's just no talking sense into that guy," he said in a dejected manner. Cameron had to smile. "You never learn. I don't get why you even bother."

As House was walking down the corridor towards the exit where he and Wilson had agreed to meet before going out to lunch, he saw Dr. Cuddy and Stacy coming towards him. The two were obviously in the middle of a conversation, but as they approached House Cuddy turned to him.

"Hey, have you been able to get a diagnose of that new patient that came in yesterday, Joanna Carson?" she asked him. House shook his head.

"Not yet," he said. "Unless you count in Chase's opinion, which, let's face it, nobody does."

"Carson..." Stacy tasted the word. "Was that the woman I talked to about her medical insurance this morning? The pale one with the brown hair?" Cuddy nodded.

"Yes, that was her."

"Oh, the poor thing," Stacy said in a sypathic voice. "You could really see she was in a lot of pain."

"All the more reason to get her diagnosed quickly." Cuddy turned to House again. "Don't go to lunch until you have come up with something."

"What do you take me for?" House answered, before he continued down the corridor. The two women went back to their conversation and went in the opposite direction.

House didn't get much further before he was stopped again, this time by a glass door opening as he passed it, causing him to trip over his own cane and drop the things he was carrying.

"What the ...!?!" he exclaimed, as a wheelchair rolled through the door. In it was a woman in a hospital gown. House's cane hit her in the arm before it fell down on the floor.He could only assume that she was Joanna Carson. She fitted Stacy's description well, she was indeed brown-haired, and very pale. What Stacy had left out was that she was also a very beautiful woman. Sure, she was clearly affected by whatever was wrong with her body, she looked very tired, as if every turning of the wheels was exhausting to her. But at the same time, there was something very much awake to her big brown eyes. Her cheek bones where high, and her neck was long. She reminded House of a painting by Rosetti.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't realize the door was that wide, that it would hit you like that." She became quiet, obviosly expecting him to assure her it was all right. He didn't, so she continued. "I saw you coming, through the glass," she explained. "Are you Dr. House?"

He gave a confirming grunt, while still trying to gather up his jacket, his cane and his wallet from the floor.

"Then you're the man I wanted to talk to. Dr. Cameron said you'd be responsible for diagnosing me," she explained. "Have you found out anything yet?"

"No, we haven't, yet," he said in an indifferent tone as he straigthened back up, eager to move on.

"Oh, I hope you can find out what it is, and soon." She didn't sound accusing, just sincerely worried. "It's the worst thing, not knowing what it is. Even if it's something really bad, I'd rather know, than just sit in that room and worry."

"Listen," he said, his tone wasn't sharp, but not exactly friendly either. "You told me you'd talked to Dr. Cameron. If you want sympathy, or even empathy, or if you're looking for someone to hold your hand, she's the one you should turn to. Not me. I'm busy with this silly little thing we call diagnosing the patients."

Without another word he contiued down the hallway. She remained in the same place, staring at him walking away from her, until he was out of sight.

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_I don't know when I'll be able to update. Hopefully in not too long._

_Reviews are apprechiated, but please go (a little bit) esay on me. ;)_


	2. A slap in the face

A slap in the face

"I'm really sorry," Cameron said as she sat down on the chair next to her patient's bed. "Dr. House can come off as quite rude sometimes. You shouldn't take it personally, he acts that way towards everybody."

"Oh, it's no problem," Joanna assured her. "Actually I'm glad I ran into him. He managed to annoy me, and it took my mind of all the worrying for a while. I really think I needed that."

Cameron smiled at her. "Well, I'm glad you see it that way. Once you know how to handle him, he's not so bad."

Joanna tucked her hair behind her ear. "So, have you been able to figure out what's wrong with me yet?" she asked. Cameron's smile faded.

"No, we haven't got any certain information for you yet," she said. "We've scheduled you for an MRI later today. Hopefully that'll give us something more to go on."

Joanna nodded as she pulled up the sleeve of her gown and scratched her arm a bit. Cameron noticed a bruise near the woman's elbow.

"Ouch, that must have hurt?" she said, poining at the mark. Joanna shrugged.

"Nah, I don't know how I got that. I only noticed it yesterday," she said.

"Really? It looks pretty bad...Well anyway, I have some questions I need to ask you that we didn't have the time for yesterday. Is that OK?" Cameron asked as she picked up a clipboard she had in her lap.

"Sure." Joanna sat up a little bit. Cameron grabbed a pen from the pocket of her coat and began asking the questions.

-

"So, I found out she's usually very healthy, she has never stayed in a hospital before in her life," Cameron informed two of her colleagues, skimming through her papers. Foreman listened attentively to what she had to say, while House was sitting in a leaned-back position, spinning his cane in hand.

"Relationship status?" Foreman asked.

"Why, do you fancy her?" Cameron giggled. Foreman gave a dejected sigh. "Just wondering if we should check the seuxally transmitted diseases of our list or not," he explained.

"Yeah, we can check those of. She hasn't been in a relationship over the past six months. Actually she told me she had barely had contact with anyone over the last month. She recently moved to the state and she hasn't began working or socializing yet. She's been so busy getting her new appartment done."

House stopped spinning his cane.

"Well, as much as I apprechiate that you spend your working days on meaningless chit-chat with the patients, I really think we should focus on info that'll help us cure her, don't you?" he said in his usual sarcastic tone. Cameron looked through her papers again. "I also found out that there's practicly nothing to find in her family history. She even called her mother while I was talking to her, to check if there was anything there that she didn't know about. The mother said there was practicly nothing for at least three generations back."

"When are we getting her MRI-results?" House asked.

"She was scheduled to go in there, uhm...nearly two hours ago," Foreman said as he checked his watch. "So they should be done soon."

Just then Chase entered the room. He was carrying some papers with him.

"Sorry I'm late," he said as he sat down at the table. "But I was stopped by a nurse who gave me the results of the blood test." A big smile came on his face. "I was right. It's a severe anemia."

"Well, great!" Foreman said, getting up, ready to leave the room. Cameron closed the file in front of her, and got up to follow him. "Yes. Then all she needs is some iron supplement pills, or if that doesn't work, a blood tranfusion, and she'll be out of here," she said as she got up.

"Stop right there." House's voice was clam, but firm. "It's not anemia."

Both Cameron and Foreman sat back down. Chase seemed confused.

"Yes, it is. Her hemoglobin levels are extremely low..."

"Sorry, I should have specified," House interrupted him. "What I meant to say was it's not JUST anemia. The anemia is just another symptom, it's caused by something else."

"What makes you so sure of that?" Foreman asked as House got up and started walking towards the whiteboard.

"I ran into her yesterday," House began.

"Oh yeah, she told me," Cameron said. "Seems like you left quite an impression."

"Literaly speaking," House said as he took the top of one of the markers.

"Literaly speaking you ran into her, or literaly speaking you left an impression?" Chase asked.

"Both." House fastened the cap at the back of the marker. "What happened was that I tripped over her, and my cane hit her arm. Ten seconds later she had a big bruise from her elbow to her wrist."

"That's right, I saw that," Cameron nodded. House wrote the words "Easy brusing" on the board.

"Also," he continued. "I noticed it seemed very hard for her to get the wheels on the chair to turn, like her fingers weren't working as they should. Anyone know anything about that?" he turned to Cameron. "How about you, dear Annie?"

"In fact she told me she had fractured two fingers on each hand only in the last two months," Cameron confirmed. "They got slammed in car doors, drawers and such."

"All right..." House wrote down "Fractures". He also added the words "due to anemia" after "Fatigue".

"So that's fatigue due to anemia, pains in arms and legs, bruises and fractures." Foreman summed up. "What does that leave us with?"

Before anyone could answer, they heard a short knocking on the door, and in came a nurse.

"I've got some MRI results, Dr. Cuddy said to bring them in here," he said and handed Foreman, who was positioned close to the door, a small pile of papers, before he left the room again. House reached out his hand.

"Let me see those," he demanded. Foreman slided the results over the table. When House had looked through the papers for only a few seconds he got a satisfied look on his face.

"What do you say if I tell you she has an enlarged spleen and liver?" he asked, knowing they'd have the right answer.

"Gaucher's!" the three others exclaimed together.

"That's correct, A+ all around." House grabbed a rag and began wiping of the board. "She'll need enzyme replacement theraphy, that should reduce her liver and spleen size and get her bloodcounts up, and take care of the skeletal anomalies. Let's keep her here for three weeks to see if it works. If it doesn't we try putting her on Zavesca."

"But wait, there's something wrong here!" Cameron suddenly had all six eyes on her. "Nobody gets Gaucher's unless both parents are carriers. There's no way her mother wouldn't know if there was such a serious illness in the family. And on both sides, too!"

"Well, it's defidently Gaucher's, but if one of you wants to do an examination of her leukocytes to confirm it, go ahead," House said. Chase got up.

"I'm on it," he said and left the room.

"Fine," House said as the door closed behind Chase." Foreman, you go report to Cuddy that we've been good little soldiers and done our job. Cameron, since you know her so well already, you can share the news with the patient."

Cameron and Foreman both got up again. "What do I tell her? About her disease being inherited, I mean?" Cameron asked House. He shrugged before he answered.

"Maybe you tell her that her mother has some explaining to do?" he suggested. Cameron sighed as she followed the other two out of the room.

-

Later, as House was leaving work for the evening, he passed by Joanna Carsons room. Through the glass door, he could see that she talking to someone through the phone hanging on the wall next to the bed. Allthough he couldn't hear much of what she was saying, her facial expression and her hand gestures made it obvious that she wasn't in a very pleasant conversation. When he had been observing her for about half a minute, she hung up, buried her face in her hands and cried.

Suddenly House heard someone coming up behind him. When he turned to check, he saw that it was Cameron.

"Oh no," she said in a low voice as when she noticed what he was looking at. "I guess her suspicions were confirmed."

"What suspicions?" House asked.

"Well, when I told her about Gaucher's being genetic, she mentioned that she had always had this feeling of not fitting in with her family. She didn't look the least bit like her parents, either. When she was fifteen, she asked her mother if she was adopted. The answer was no, but she was never really able to believe that was the truth. When I left the room half an hour ago, she was dialing her parent's number to ask the same queston again." Cameron sighed before she continued. "To live with a lie like that for 34 years, and then the bubble bursts... I'm glad I'm not in her shoes at the moment."

Just then, Joanna looked up and saw the two doctors standing outside the room looking at her. They both considered looking in a different direction, but it was obivous that she knew they had been observing her. Joanna signaled with a hand gesture that she wanted them to come in. Cameron put her hand on the doorknob at once, but House hesitated.

"You go in," he said. "I'm on my way home."

"No, she obviously wants you, too." Cameron grabbed him by the jacket as he was about to walk past the door. "Come on. Maybe she has questions about the treatment or something."

She opened the door and went inside. House lingered for another second or so, then he followed her.

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_I'll probably have another update ready around the end of next week._


	3. A past to erase

_I updated a little sooner than planned, so here's another chapter._

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**A past to erase**

"So, your mother had bad news, did she?" Cameron asked in a mild voice as she sat down at the end of Joanna's bed. House stayed over by the door, still wondering if he had been better of not entering the room.

Joanna nodded. "Well, my so-called mother, that is," she said as she wiped of her face with the back of her hand. Then she sighed. "Wow am I in a mess, huh? I'm ill, I'm in a new place where I don't know anybody, I've broken off all contact with my family...Oh, I'm sorry, I mean my "family"!" she said, making the exclamation signs in the air with her hands.

"I'm so sorry to hear that..."Cameron said, as she crossed her legs and sat back a little. House got the feeling she was getting ready to stay a while, and he became more and more certain that getting into this had been a mistake.

Just then, one of the receptionists knocked on the glass door and looked in.

"Dr. Cameron, there's a phone call for you..." she said. Cameron uncrossed her legs.

"I should probably get that. I can come back afterwards if you..."

"No, no, it's allright," Joanna cut her off. "I'll be fine. I just wanted to...uhm..." She bit her lip and sniffled before she continued. "Just...if someone should call me...could you just...I don't want to talk to...them...right now."

Cameron nodded. "If you're sure?" "I am!" Joanna assured her. "Then I'll make sure the reception staff don't put anyone through to you," Cameron agreed. Then she got up and went to follow the receptionist, who had closed the door and was on her way down the corridor.

House was about to follow Cameron out of the room, but seeked eyecontact with Joanna first. She was wiping away a tear from the corner of her right eye. "It's ok, you can go too," she said when she noticed he was looking at her. "I'll be fine, I just...I need some time to think..."

House surprised himself when he tried to hide how relieved he was.

"I just..." Joanna's voice stopped him as his hand reached the doorknob. He looked at her again. House normally didn't think women were much to look at when they cried. Their faces would get very red and swollen, their noses would drip, they'd make all these annoying noises... But there was absolutely nothing he found despicable about Joanna when she was crying, on the contrary. Her brown eyes that stared right into his blue seemed to shimmer even more as tears fell from them.

"I just...I...have you ever felt totally alone in the world?" she asked "As if no one could ever get into your mind and understand you, ever again?"

House's mind immediately began searching for sarcastic answers, the way it always did whenever he was presented with a question. He was just about to open his mouth and letsomething slip out when he realized he had no desire to say what he was about to say, if there was a chance that his comment would make her feel even worse than she already did. This realisation shocked him, and made him unable to speak for a few seconds.

He averted his eyes and took a deep breath before he looked at her again.

"Yes," he said. "I have."

Then he left her alone in the room, and went out into the cold night.

-

The next morning when the team went their rounds, Joanna was in a very different state. This time, when they entered her room, she was sitting up in bed putting on make-up. She smiled when the four doctors came in.

House had decided to come with the other three this morning, a fact that Chase, Foreman and Cameron found very strange. House would usually never go to see a patient out of the blue, if he wasn't forced. They didn't say anything to him about it, but they shared some looks between themselves.

"Good morning. How are you feeling today?" Cameron asked Joanna in the same mild voice she had used the night before.

"I'm fine, thank you, now stop sucking up, and start concentrating on the patient!" House said in his usual dry tone of voice.

Joanna put the cap back on the mascara she had been applying to her lashes.

"Well, when I woke up this morning I decided I wasn't going to keep on just lying her wallowing in pity and feeling sorry for myself." She put the mascara back into the little bag she had on her lap. "So from now on I'm just going to focus on getting better, so that I can get out of here and start my new life."

"Sounds like a good idea," Foreman said as he came closer to the bed. "It's so much easier getting better when you have you mind set on it."

"Oh yes, let's all hold hands and light a bunch of candles in a dark room!" House said as he leaned on the bedstead.

"Let me tell you about the treatment." Chase quickly switched to a new subject. "It's called enzyme replacement therapy. What we do is that we give you an intravenous infusion containing the IV enzyme. You'll recieve the enzyme for a short period of time each day for the first couple of days, then once every third day when you're starting to recover," he explained. Joanna nodded.

"Now, it's important that you understand that this is not a cure," Foreman took over. "The treatment should take away all the symptoms so that you're able to function as normal. If the treatment stops, the symptoms will come back."

"So, will I have to come back here every third day to get infusions?" Joanna didn't seem to comfortable with the idea.

"No, once we get you more stabilized, once every other week will do," Foreman explained.

"And after a year or so, if there aren't any set-backs, we can allow home treatment. That means we send a nurse to your home to give you the treatment there."

"Must be a relieve, huh? Not having to come here to see these guys' ugly faces all the time..." House sarcasticly asked Joanna, pointing at Chase and Foreman with his cane.

"I'd rather see their ugly faces than listen to your snarky comments," Joanna shot back, in a dry tone, but with a smirk on her face, causing Chase, Foreman and Cameron to smile.

"Right then, I'll get you a catheter and we'll start the treatment as soon as possible," Chase concluded, and the team got ready to leave.

House was the last person out the door. As he closed the door behind him, he stopped for about a second, no more, and turned to look at Joanna one more time. When he turned again, he saw Stacy standing right in front of him. The others were already at the other end of the hall.

Stacy came closer.

"You don't want to go there, Greg," she said in a deep, firm voice.

"Go where?"

"Don't act like you don't know. I've seen the way you look at her." Stacy nodded towards the door House had just come through. "It's the way you used to look at me when we first met. You think she has beautiful eyes, pretty hair, you think she is bright, you think she is perfect..."

"And that's how I saw you? Wow, have we got a high self-esteem today." House tried to get past her, but Stacy blocked the way.

"You're not even denying it, are you? Well, you should let it go. She's way too young for you, she's ill, she has a lot to think about at the moment, not to mention she's your patient..."  
"Yes, I am denying it!"House's tone was sharp. "What you're suggesting is total madness. You're completely wrong. Now, would you let me pass?"

Stacy reluctantly moved to the side and made room for House to walk by her.

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_More in a few days. Reviews are apprechiated._


	4. She asked Chase

**She asked Chase**

House was limping down the dark corridor, heading towards his office. It was ten past 3 o'clock in the morning, and the hospital was much more quiet than at daytime. The pains shooting through his leg were so bad they nearly made him throw up. He wanted to moan out loud, but kept quiet, not to break the overwhelming silence. He had barely slept all night, partly because he somehow had managed to forget his glass of pills in his office when he left work, thus he had been tortured by the terrible pains for several hours. But the lack of Vicodin wasn't the only reason why he didn't sleep well...

For the past few nights, he had kept dreaming the same dream over and over again. In the dream, he had no idea where he was or how he got there, but he was in some kind of room where all the walls, and even the floor and the ceiling, where covered in bright red velvet. He was standing in the center of the room, and – and this was what he was most shocked by – Joanna was there. She was always in a short black dress, and high-heeled shoes. She'd come right towards him, walking in a really sexy, wreathing sort of way. As she reached him, she'd put her arms around his neck and whisper four short words into his ear; "I want you, Greg..." in a low, sensual voice. And then...he'd wake up.

He had tried his best to get these dreams to stop, so he could have a decent night's sleep. He had tried to tell himself how incredibly stupid it was _"She doesn't even know your first name is Greg! Plus, she's ill! Do people who are ill suddenly turn you on? That's convenient, considering your occupation..." _But nothing helped. The dream kept coming back, night after night, hour after hour.

He reached his office and found the glass of pills on his desk. He swallowed a handful, dryly. Only seconds later it felt like the pains had to give in to its killers. He wasn't sure whether it was because he had such faith in the Vicodin or because it actually had an effect, and he didn't care.

He was on his way out when he passed the door to Joanna's room. He peeked in, but couldn't see her in there. The next thing he knew someone crashed into him. Someone's forehead slammed against his chin and he could feel someone stepping on his toes. It was Joanna.

"Dr. House!" she exclaimed and stepped back.

"Last time I checked, yes..." he said as he was trying to regain balance.

"Wow, we really have to stop running into each other this way..." she said, giggling a little. Even though her treatment had only started three days earlier, she seemed a lot more energetic than before, especially considering what time it was.

"So, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"What are you doing here?" Once he'd said it he heard what a stupid question it was. "I mean, why aren't you in bed?"

"You want me in bed, do you, Greg?" She sent him a teasing smile as went past him, her body brushing against his. She opened the door to her room and entered, and he followed her.

"How do you know my name?" he asked, confused. She sat down on the bed, pulled her feet up, grabbed a tube of lotion from her nightstand and began anointing in on her bare feet, without answering his question or even looking at him.

"Well?" he asked again, as he came closer. When he sat down next to her, she looked up at him.

"I'm a little ashamed of myself..." she said, with a nervous little laugh. She put her feet back down and put the lotion back on the nightstand. "I actually asked Dr. Chase what your name was. I was curious if you had a name that...that fit you... or not."

"Well, what's your conclution?" he asked, moving a little bit closer. Suddently he noticed his hand was touching hers. They both looked down as they felt the touch, but neither of them pulled their hand back.

"I... I concluded that it fits you very well," she said. She leaned towards him, slowly, more and more, until her face was less than an inch from his.

When she stopped, he leaned closer to her, until their lips met.

The kiss was long and passionate. He had no idea how long it really lasted, but it felt like an eternity. When they let their lips slide apart he pulled back a little and looked into her eyes.

"Maybe we...maybe I..." he began, but she placed a hand on his cheek and shut his mouth with the other.

"Greg?"

"Mhm?"

"Shut up and kiss me again."

The very next second their hands were all over each other. His ripping off her hospital gown went pretty fast, but opening the button on his pants took her longer. He unpatiently shoved her hands away and opened it himself. It didn't scare her, she moved her hands to his neck and started unbuttoning his shirt instead.

He dozed off with his face buried towards her chest a little later, and for the first time in several days he was able to sleep a calm, dreamless sleep.

-

It was her who woke him up, early the next morning.

"House! House, it's almost time for rounds, you have to get up!"

As soon as he reached conciousness, he got a bitter taste in his mouth, and a bad feeling in his entire body. Once he remembered where he was at the moment and how he had got there, he felt a need to get away as soon as possible. A tiny little voice in his head kept repeating the same short sentence over and over; _This was wrong! This was wrong!_

He yawned as he sat up in bed, noticing that she no longer used his first name. He chose not to comment on it. The bed was obviously not made for two people, so he got up before he began to get dressed.

"So. Last night. It was...good." he said before he slipped his shirt over his head.

"Last night?" She grabbed her watch from the nightstand. "It was like four hours ago...But yeah, it was."

"Still, I..." he browsed around the room looking for his pants, but couldn't see them anywhere. "I really don't think we should...You know, I'm really not good with this sort of thing."

"It's OK," She yawned and streched before she continued. "I get what you're saying. It was just sex. We don't have to make anything more out of it." She yawned again" I mean...I've been kinda down lately, and I...I guess I was just facinated with you and...you know...the way you act, the way you talk to people. And I guess you didn't exactly find me repulsive either..."

"Far from it," he said, relieved that she wasn't one of those girls who'd pick out a wedding dress once a guy looked at her. "So, we're OK, then?"

"Sure," she nodded. "And we don't tell anyone about this, do we? I mean, I don't want anyone to think I'm a slut. See, I don't usually do things like this..."

"Don't worry," he said while straightning his collar. "The only common aquaintances you and I have are my three little musketeers, and I'm not planning on running to brag to them, they'd deep-fry me."

She smiled at him. "Sleeping with patients a little frowned upon, is it?"

"I don't do it on a regular basis, but I'm guessing it's not the kind of thing that authomaticly leads to a raise." He looked around in the room again. "Now, did you notice where my pants went?"

She giggled and pointed "They're hanging from that lamp in the ceiling over there..."

* * *

_I don't know when I'll be able to update, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a week, or maybe in a month. As always, reviews are apprechiated._


	5. Not drawing the ace

**Not drawing the ace**

"So, Joanna Carson's being released today, right?" Chase asked while dipping a tea-bag into his cup.

"Yep. The three weeks are up, and the treatment is working," Foreman confirmed. "Cameron has gone to see her off."

"See who off?" House entered the room just in time to hear the last bit of Foreman's sentence.

"Joanna Carson. You know, the patient you haven't been to see the last three weeks. One could think you'd been trying to avoid her..." Chase joked as he led the cup towards his mouth to take the first sip. Suddenly House grabbed the cup out of his hands.

"Aw, you made me a cup of tea? That's sweet!" he said ironicly before he tasted it. "Mmm, delicious." He sat down by the table before she continued. "So, she's leaving today, is she?"

Before anyone could answer, Cameron came into the room. She seemed upset, and was clearly relieved to find the other three there.

"I just went to see Joanna Carson," she said. "She was sick, throwing up and feeling awful. Plus I got back the blood tests we did on her yesterday." She showed them a file. "Her haemoglobin levels are getting lower again. It's as if the effect of the treatment is wearing of."

Chase and Foreman got confused looks on their faces as they began to study the blood test results further. House on the other hand, was staring firmly down on his own shoes, he just sat there, quietly, and didn't say a word.

"This doesn't make any sense," Foreman concluded. "Why would the treatment work at first and then stop working three weeks later?"

"I checked with the nurses if they had skipped an injection or if something else had come up, but they said everything had been done by the book," Cameron assured them.

"Well, there's no way she can be released now," Chase said. "We'll need to run more tests."

House looked up. "No, Chase. Not plural, not test-S!" he said as he got up and came over to them. "You only need one test to find out why this is happening." The others looked at him with anticipation. House took another sip from his cup before he continued.

"A pregnancy test."

---

"Yep, House was right. She's pregnant," Cameron concluded when she, Chase and Foreman where handed back the test results a little later.

"How is that possible? The only medicine she was on when she was submitted was birth control pills..." Chase reminded them.

"She probably just forgot one. Sometimes, that's all it takes," Foreman said.

"Well, how about how she told us she hadn't been with anybody for months?" Cameron wasn't convinced. "Why would she lie about that to us, to doctors? And the MRI she took? We would have noticed the pregnancy when we studied the results."

"Not if she was only a couple of weeks along..."

"Within two weeks before she got here, she already would have the anemia. That would reduce her chances of getting pregnant a great deal." Cameron replied.

Foreman looked at his female colleague. "What are you suggesting, anyway, that she got pregnant while she was staying here in the hospital?"

"That's impossible!" Chase chimed in. "You said it yourself, she doesn't have contact with anybody, nobody's been to see her."

Cameron got an aloof look on he face, and said nothing for a moment.

"Unless..." she eventually mumbled, before she suddenly stormed out of the room. Chase and Foreman sent each other confused looks before they went after her.

---

"You slept with her, didn't you?!?" Cameron exclaimed as she bursted into House's office. Chase and Foreman followed her in, more confused than ever.

"What?" Foreman shouted.

"Why would you say that, Cameron?" Chase asked her. Cameron didn't answer him. She was standing in front of the desk, staring into House's eyes.

"You slept with her, didn't you?" she asked again, this time in a calm, but ice-cold voice.

"Yes darling, but it meant nothing and I was thinking of you the entire time," House said in his usual dry tone.

"This isn't funny, House! You...you...you knocked up a patient!" Cameron's voice got loud and shrieking again."

"You actually slept with a patient on hospital premises?" Foreman couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"So that's why you've been avoiding her...and that's why she wanted to know your name..." Chase thought back.

"So...I take it the pregnancy is now confirmed?" House still didn't seem very affected by the situation.

"How can you be so calm about this? When Cuddy finds out, she's gonna kill you!" Cameron shrieked.

"When I find out about what?"

Cuddy had just come into the room, without any of them noticing. Now she was looking at them all four, with anthicipation.

"Well?"

Nobody said a word, but Cameron, Chase and Foreman all stared at House, waiting for him to confess. House stared back, appearantly having no intentions of saying a word.

The silence lasted for a good ten seconds before Cameron broke it.

"Well, if you're not going to tell her, then I will," she snarled at House. Then she turned to Cuddy.

"We have a problem. I supposed you've been told about Joanna Carsons's setback?" Cuddy nodded and Cameron continued. "Well, we now know that she is in fact pregnant." She asserted her eyes and paused. "And it has become clear that Dr. House...is the_..."_ She paused for a bit more _"_...cause of that."

Cuddy looked at House.

"Is this true?" she asked him.

"No, Cameron get's a kick out of making stuff like this up. Of course it's true!" He said, clearly irritated.

"Right..."Cuddy thought for a second or two, then she looked at the other three again. "Does Ms. Carson know about this...condition...yet?"

"Not yet, we haven't had the time to tell her," Foreman replied.

"Well, you three can go and inform her immideately, while I discuss this with Dr. House." Cuddy pointed towards the door, and the three doctors stepped out of the room.

"Also inform her about the difficulties considering Gaucher's and pregnancy, won't you?" Cuddy called after them.

"Of course," Foreman confirmed, and shut the soor behind them.

"And then there where two..." House said, as he got up from his chair and came around the desk.

"You actually slept with her? House, are you insane? Of all the things you've done..."Cuddy began.

"Yes, yes, I know. I'm skum." House sat down in the armchair, took a grape from the bowl on the table and continued. "Cameron had a very similar reaction. Must be a girl thing..."

"This isn't funny, House!"

"That's what she said."

"Be quiet for a moment, would you? You're driving me crazy!" Cuddy buried her face in her hands for a moment. "If the hospital board finds out about this, you are so fired..."

"Why should it be up to them who I chose to sleep with? It's not like I raped her, believe me, she was very much up to it." House spitted out the grape seeds into the waste bin.

"All right, here's what's going to happen," Cuddy began. "You are going to go talk to her, right now, and you're going to ask her wheter she intends to form a complaint..."

"Seriously, you think I'm that bad in bed?" House joked. Cuddy ignored him.

"To form a complaint about what happened to the hospital board. If she's not planning to do so, we're gonna cross our fingers and hope they never fin out about it..." She sat down on the desk before she continued. "The woman has Gaucher's, it's unlikely that she'll be wanting, or able, to carry to term." She looked up at him "Now, should the board find out about this, I'll make sure your head is on the block, not mine. Is that clear?"

"Yes ma'am." House replied.

"Good, now go and talk to her."

He shrugged, then got up, leaning on his cane, and started limping towards the door.

"And House?" Cuddy called after him. "The next time you pull an idiotic stunt like this, use a condom. That way you don't leave a trace."

"Thanks for the tip, you obviously have a lot of experience in the area..." House mumbled as he left the room.

* * *

_I'm running out of chapter titles that rhyme so if you have suggestions (allthough you don't know how this will turn out) let me know. :)_


	6. Problems to face?

_I'm sorry if this one seems a bit rushed but – it is! I'm leaving today so you probably won't get a new chapter until next weekend at the earliest._

**Problems to face?**

Allthough he had promised Cuddy he would, House didn't go straight to Joanna's room. When he left the office, he went home, and didn't go to see her until early the next morning.

He came to work early, not wanting to run into any of his colleagues until he had talked to her.

When he came into Joanna's room, she was still asleep, but she woke up when she heard him enter.

"Oh, it's you...Where have you been, I've asked for you over and over," she said in a sleppy manner when she saw him. She was much more pale than she had been the last time she saw her, and it was clear that her illness was setting it's mark on her again.

"I'm sorry, I had to go somewhere," he lied, as he came closer to her bed.

"I wanted to talk to you." She sat up in bed. "About the..." she hesitated for a moment. "About the baby. Our baby."

"I think I'd prefer it if you refer to it as a foetus..." he said, sitting down on her bedside. " I assume the others informed you that with a severe case of Gaucher's like yours..."

"About that!" she interrupted him, but paused before she went further. Then she looked straight into his eyes and continued.

"House...Let me tell you something about me that you don't know."

"That should be esay."

She sat back and averted her eyes, then took a deep breath before she began.

"When I turned 30, I became really scared that I'd end up alone. As you already know, I never really felt like I belonged in my family growing up..."

"Wait a minute...What does this story have to do with this... with anything? House asked.

She looked at him briefly before she looked down again.

"When I was younger," she continued, "I'd always comfort myself by thinking about how I was going to grow up and have a husband and children, and not feel alone anymore."

She took another deep breath. " Then I turned 30, and still, I didn't have anyone. And I was so tired of that lonely feeling. So I made a decision. I decided that if I couldn't have the husband I had been dreaming about, I still wanted to be a mother. I decided to get inseminated with a donor's sperm to try and concieve."

Suddenly she looked up at him. Her brown eyes started firmly into his blue as she raised her voice and continued.

"For four years now, I've been trying to have a baby. Four years, House, and still, no result. Just one dissapointment after the other. And then BAM, a one-night-stand with you and I'm pregnant." She folded her hands and placed them over her belly.

"I don't even know if what we did counts as a one-night-stand. I didn't even take you out to dinner first..." He looked down on the folded hands on her flat belly. "So what are you saying?" he asked. "You're saying you... don't want to end the pregnancy? Joanna, that's insane. Enzyme treated patients like you stand chances of miscarriage, stillbirth...You've barely even started your treatment, it would be a risk for you too..."

"I know all those things!" She bit her lip and looked down on herself. "But I can't just give up, like that. I can't."

He sighed "What if I tell you that..."

"Listen!" she interrupted. "If you can look me in the eyes and tell me that there's absolutely no way that this baby will be born, no chance what so ever, then I'll agree to an abortion." She tried to get eye-contact with him.

"Greg..." she said. It was the first time she used his name since they slept together. "Is there any chance that this could work?"

5...10...15 seconds went by, and he didn't say a word. He realized what an enourmous power she had just given him, and it overwhelmed him a little.

Finally, he looked at her and opened his mouth.

"Yes," he said. "There is a chance."

---

On his way to meeting with the team a little later, House ran into Cuddy. She was anything but happy to see him.

"Where the hell were you yesterday?!?" She asked when she saw him. "You said you were going to talk to Joanna Carson!"

"I did." He defended himself.

"No, you didn't!"

"Yes I did, I'm coming from her room just now."

"Well, you were supposed to talk to her yesterday!" Cuddy was clearly annoyed.

"Long talk." He went past her and continued down the corridor. Cuddy turned after him.

"Well, how did it go?" she asked, impatiently. He stopped and thought for a second before he answered.

"Let's just say she won't be forming a complaint," he said. Then he hurried on.

---

Cameron, Chase and Foreman had just settled around the table when House entered the room.

"Well, if it isn't the three little taddletales..." He said as he sat down at the end of the table. Cameron immideately felt a wave of guily wash through her.

"House, we're sorry about yesterday, but you left us no choice. We had to tell Cuddy..." she tried to reason with him. When he didn't reply, she continued. "Have you talked to Joanna yet?"

"Yes." The reply was short, more like a grunt than a word.

"And?" Foreman asked.

"And we need to increase her enzyme treatments..." House said, before he got up and headed towards the coffee pot. The other three exchanged confused looks.

"Does that mean...?" Chase asked.

"Yep." House confirmed. "She wants to have the baby." His voice seemed rather calm.

"But that's...insane. She has only just began her treatment..." Cameron began.

Foreman agreed. "I don't think I've ever heard of a successful pregnancy at this early stage in Gaucher's..."

"Maybe that's because no one has tried." House's voice was still calm.

Cameron got up and came closer to him. "House, I know you are more involved in this case than in most others but don't you think..."

"Let's get one thing straigh!" House slammed the coffe pot he had been pouring from down on the worktop. His voice was not calm anymore "My so-called involvement in this case does not matter!" He brought his cup and limped towards the door. "She wants to try and carry to term, that's her decision! Don't make it seem like I'm any kind of a factor here, because I'm not and I have no wish to be!"

With those words he left the room.


	7. House&Wilson Cuddy&Stace

_NB: The title? Not shipping suggestions! ;-)_

* * *

**House&Wilson/Cuddy&Stace**

"Wow…" Wilson laid back on his chair and rested his feet on the desk, trying to take in the information House had just given him. "So, in other words, if you come through and do your job as a doctor, and keep her healthy, you'll be a father in nine months?"

"Biologicaly, yes..." House confirmed in a low voice.

"So, did the two of you discuss what your part will be in this?" Wilson wondered.

"Well, all she said was that I could be as involved as I wanted to. By then I was halfway out the door." House said. "As involved as I want to" what the heck does that mean? Is it slang for "Start saving up for a labrador, a volvo, and yearly trips to Disneyland" or for "Your job is done, jerk, now get out of my sight?"

"Which would you prefer?" Wilson asked. House leaned forward on the chair, supporting his forehead on top of his hands on the head of his cane.

"I...don't...know..." he said slowly, taking a long break between each word. Wilson waited for him to say something more, but he didn't.

"When you were with Stacy...did you two ever dicuss having children?" he eventually asked. House sat back up and shook his head.

"Nope. She was smart enough not to discuss something like that with me," he said. "Plus, you know, she has a career and all that..."

"Does this...Joanna...have a career?" Wilson wondered.

"I have no idea what so ever. I don't know anything about her!" House exclaimed. " All I know about this woman is that her egg cells get along really well with my sperm!"

Wilson put his feet back down on the floor.

"So..." he said. "What are the chances she'll be able to carry to term, you think?"

House sighed "It's hard to tell. Some Gaucher's patients experience several miscarriages in a row, some get through pregnancy without trouble. Because the illness is so rare, there aren't that many statistics out there, but the numbers that do excist are generally based on women that have been recieving treatment for years, and they get by on smaller dozes than...this case."

Wilson gave an apprehending grunt. "So... we'll have to wait and see, then."

"You say that as if we were discussing the weather, or what pants-suit Cuddy will wear tomorrow!"!" House complained. "This could have a huge impact on me!...Or not." He leaned his forehead on the cane again. "Fertile women should come with a black label warning..."

They sat in silcence for a whiled, before Wilson cleared his throat. "You know what?" he said. "This is really up to you. I know you well enough to know that you manage most of the things you have your mind set on. If you decide you want to be good at fatherhood, then you will be, but if you decide to be the worst father in history, you'll have no trouble getting there either." He paused for a bit. "If I were you, I'd do some thinking."

"Hm, that's strange," House replied. "See, if I were you, I'd get a haircut."

---

A little later the same day, two other people were discussing the same subject. Stacy and Cuddy were having lunch together in the hospital cafeteria.

"What?!? Are you sure about this?" Stacy couldn't believe what Cuddy had just told her.

"Yep," Cuddy confirmed. "I spoke to Cameron, Chase and Foreman. The patient is pregnant with House's baby, and she wants to keep it."

They both tried to keep their voices down, not to be overheard by anyone, but Stacy in particular had to make an effort to curb herself.

"That's...wow! Greg must be...do you know how he reacted?" She asked. Cuddy shook her head. "No. Sorry." She took a bite of her sandwich before she continued. "How would he act when you two talked about children?"

"We didn't," Stacy told her. "Come on. Greg and kids? No way." She took a sip from her water bottle. "Besides, we both had jobs and stuff, you know? It just...wasn't an issue."

Cuddy shrugged. "Hm..."

Stacy thought for a second. "Do you think she planned it?

"Who planned what?"

"This patient, what was her name? Joanna Carson? Do you think she planned to seduce Greg so that she'd get pregnant? I mean...who sleeps with their doctor just like that? You'd expect something like that from him, but..."

Cuddy wasn't quite following. "Why would she do that? Even if we assume she wanted a child, why choose to sleep with House?"

"Why not? I did!" Stacy reminded her.

"Allright, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that," Cuddy assured her. "I don't know why the woman did it. You could be right, I have no idea."

"That bitch!" Stacy exclaimed, just a bit too loud. When she looked around in the room she saw Cameron, Chase and Foreman staring at her from another table.

"I wasn't referring to any of you!" She quickly explained, before she turned back to Cuddy and continued the conversation.

---

"I think I know who she was referering to..." Chase mumbled. Foreman nodded.

"Yep. Speaking of Joanna Carson, have any of you checked on her today?"

"Let House do that. Appearantly he likes it that way..." Cameron mumbled as she gathered up cartons and napkins on her tray, getting ready to leave.

"What's gotten into you? I thought you got along with the patient?" Foreman asked as Cameron got up.

"Nah," she replied, before she left. When she was out of sight, Chase turned to Foreman.

"I just don't get it. House gets this woman pregnant, and then suddenly she is on Cuddy, Warner and Cameron's hate list?"

"Yeah..." Foreman agreed. "It's a mystery to me. A real mystery."


	8. A feeling of malaise

**A feeling of malaise**

Cameron was right – House didn't mind checking up on Joanna. In fact he went to see her voluntarily later that same day. When he entered her room she was skimming through a magazine, which she put away once she saw him.

"Hey..." she said, as she smiled to him in an insecure manner. "You're back. The last time I saw you, you couldn't seem to get out of here fast enough." She laughed, nervously. When he didn't answer, she continued. "So, have you given any more thought to what were going to do about the whole...situation?"

"About that..." House came closer to her bed. "I'm assuming there's no need to ask whether it's actually mine? You didn't sleep with the janitor, or the chinese receptionist?" he said in his usual sarcastic manner.

"The janitor is so not my type, and I'm pretty sure the chinese receptionist is gay." Joanna shot back. The she sat up.

"Seriously, House. You and I do not know that much about each other, but I can tell you right here and now that I'm a very honest person. It's definitely yours."

Again, he didn't answer her right away. He simply began to study her charts, before he checked the movement in her arms and legs, in addition to her heartbeat. After a few minutes he was done.

"We got you back to where we had you before the...setback," he concluded. "You can be released at any time, now." He grabbed his cane, which had been leaning towards the wall during the examination, and started limping towards the door.

Joanna hesitated for a bit, then she called after him.

"Hou...Greg?"

He stopped, but he didn't turn. "Yes?" he said in a low voice.

"Listen, I...I know I told you you could be as involved as you like, in the baby's life. I want to refrase that." She paused, and tucked her hair behind her ear. He still didn't turn to face her.

"I've been thinking..." her voice was quiet, but still firm. "Over the last past month, I have experienced what it feels like to have these...these missing pieces. Not knowing all the things you'd like to know about your background. It's not a very good feeling, and I don't want my child to have to go through it, not if I can prevent it." She took a deep breath. "So that's why I wanted to tell you that...well, of course I can't force you, but I think you should know that I sincerely hope that you will agree to be a part of the baby's life, so that he or she won't have to grow up without a father." She sat back and looked up at him, waiting for a response, but he remained still, with his back turned to her. "Well, now you know how I feel..." she concluded.

After a few more seconds of silence, House finally turned to her.

"As I said," he began in a calm, low voice. "I'll make sure you're out of here pretty soon." Without saying another word, he left the room.

---

Joanna was released the next day, and because both Chase and Foreman were stuck doing clinic duty and Houe conveniently was nowhere to be found, it fell on Cameron to see her off.

Allthough Cameron thought she had acted in a proffesional manner it became obvious that Joanna had noticed the strained atmosphere when they were done with the final examination. As Cameron removed the sphygmomanometer cuff from her patients arm, Joanna sendt her a sad smile.

"Do you really think what I did was that bad?" she asked. Cameron jerked when she heard the question.

"I don't know what you're referring to…" she mumbled.

"Oh come on! You've hardly even looked me in the eyes once in the fifteen minutes you've been here!" Joanna flung back on her bad and giggled a sad little laugh. "It's not just you. I've seen it in others here, also. And it's not like I don't get it. You must think I'm a total slut."

Cameron tried to protest.

"No, no, no. I'm sorry if anyone has given you that impression. What anyone here thinks of you is irelevant, you're a patient in this hospital and…"

"Save it," Joanna cut her off. " I don't blame you. That's what I would think if I were you." Joanna's words made Cameron feel a little more relaxed, and the atmosphere in the room got less tense than before.

"Still. I want you to know that I'm not really such a horrible person." Joanna continued. "This thing that happened…it's really not like me. Not at all. In fact, I'd probably be the last person you'd think would do something like that if you knew me. Since I'm supposed to come in here once a month for...God knows how long, it's important to me that I've told you that." She looked Cameron straight in the eyes. "So…are we good?"

Cameron smiled a little. "Of course," she said. "Absolutely."

She gathered up her equipment and was getting ready to leave. But just as she was heading towards the door, Joanna reached out and grabbed her by the sleeve to stop her.

"Wait!" she exclaimed. "Dr. Cameron, I..." She let go of Cameron's arm and averted her eyes.

"I don't want to...It's just that...I don't know House very well. You probably know him a lot better than I do. I was hoping I could ask you too...I've been trying to get him to open up to me, but he just keeps pushing me away."

Cameron leaned towards the bed pole as she replied. "Sorry, I can't help you with that. In fact I doubt anyone can."

---

That night, Joanna Carson was getting ready to go to bed in her own, new appartment for the first time in over a month. As she slipped out of her robe and climbed into bed, she looked towards an empty space at the other end of the room, inbetween her dresser and the door to the bathroom. She could esaily picture a beatiful baby crib there, with teddy bears peeking out of it.

Just as she placed a hand on her belly and rubbed back and forth a little, the telephone rang.When she picked up she couldn't hear anyone at first.

"Hello?" she asked. "Hello? Anyone there?"

She was just about to hang up when she, to her surprise heard House's voice at the other end.

"Okey," she heard him say. "Okey, I'll try." Then he hung up. Joanna sat as paralyzed listening to the phone's constant beeping for a long time before she was able to do the same thing.


	9. Done with the appraise

_I got an e-mail from someone asking me if I have thought about what Joanna looks like. Well, I think she can look however the reader wants her to, but in my mind she looks a little bit like Melina Kanakaredes from CSI and Providence. I don't know why, it just turned out that way. But as I said, each reader should decide that for themselves._

* * *

**Done with the appraise**

"So, how's your schedule for today? Free for lunch around noon?" Wilson asked House. The two had just arrived at the hospital at the same time, and were now stepping out of the elevator.

"You know me well enough to know I have no idea what so ever," House said and wiped sweat of his forhead. "Man, it's hot today..."

"Yeah, we're breaking temperature records every day. Don't you read newspapers?" Wilson asked. Before House could answer, a door further down the corridor opened and Cameron came out.

"There's little Ms. Organized, she'll know what my schedule looks like..." he mumbled, before he called out her name.

Cameron came towards them, carrying a pile of journals.

"What?" she asked. She could feel a drop of sweat run down her cheek, but to her frustration she had no available hands to wipe it away.

"What am I supposed to do today? What sort of duties has our beloved emperess Cuddy given me?" House asked her.

"Since when is it my job to keep track of your workday?" Cameron asked. The journals were heavy, and she longed to put them down.

"Oh, come on...you know this kind of stuff. It's in your nature, you can't help it." House said dryly. "Spill it."

"Cameron sighed. "Allright. You've got clinic duty at ten..."

"...which...let's see...Foreman will generously offer to take over," House interrupted.

"...and it's Wednesday, so Joanna's coming in to get her enyzme treatment at one. It's two weeks since last time." Cameron finished. "You're taking care of that, right?"

"Right...Okey, now go put that down somewhere, it looks heavy." House said and went past her.

"Great idea, why didn't I think of that?" Cameron mumbled as she went into the conference room, while House and Wilson headed towards House's office.

"How far along is Joanna now?" Wilson asked.

"16 weeks." House answered immideatly."Or, you know...Something like that."

"And the treatment isn't affecting the foetus?"

"Not yet, as far as I know." They reached the office and House went inside. Wilson remained by the door.

"How are things with you two?"he asked.

"Ah, you know." House replied. "Typical mummy-daddy relationship. Mummy comes to see daddy twice a month, daddy sticks a needle in her arm and fills her up with a fluid that might cause her to miscarry...You know. The usual stuff."

Wilson sighed. "Not exactly Seventh Heaven..."

"Maybe not..." House agreed. "But then again, I was always more of an X-files kinda guy myself."

---

Cameron put down her heavy load on the conference table and could finally grab a tissue from her pocket and wipe of her face.

"Phew..." she uttered as she sat down. "The heat is killing me..."

"Tell me about it..." Foreman was pouring himself a glass of water. "Hardly possible to work in this weather."

"Yeah, it's just so hard to think..." Chase complained as he sat down at the table, opposite Cameron.

"Right, 'cause you do that so well when it's not hot..." Cameron teased him. "Thank goodness, it looks like a quiet day today," she contiued. "Joanna's coming in, but that's House's territory."

"She's what, four, five months along now?" Foreman asked.

"Four," Cameron nodded. "And so far there hasn't been any problems with the treatment."

"Strange, isn't it," Foreman remarked. "If it works out, House will actually be a father. That's a scary thought."

"Sounds like a horror movie," Chase agreed and took on the voice of a movie presenter. "Coming soon: A woman has been impregnated with the semen of...damtamaram! Satan himself! In a cinema near you!" he joked.

Cameron giggled, "Come on, you guys. You never know, maybe House will be a good father."

"Yeah, and maybe pigs will start to fly..." Foreman commented.

"Seriously, we only know him as an employer," Cameron reminded them. "Working with someone and being related to them are two completely different things."

"You can say that again..." Chase said. "And when it comes to House, I'm glad I've only tried one of the two."

---

"Today it's my turn to ask you questions..." Joanna said as House put a cannula in her hand. This was a system she had convinced him to go through with – the two of them took turns asking each other three questions at each treatment session, so that they would get to know each other better before they were to become parents.

"Shoot," House allowed as he hung the bag containing the enzyme on a rack next tho the table Joanna was sitting on.

"This is actually something I have been thinking about for a while..." Joanna said as the fluid began to stream through the cannula. She looked up at him. "Are your parents still alive?"

"Yes." House's reply was short, but not unfriendly. Joanna waited for him to say something more, but he didn't.

"Well, have you told them about the baby?" she asked.

"No." Another monosyllable was all she got out of him.

"Why not?" she asked him, clearly dissapointed.

"Let's just say you have no monopoly on not being best friends with your folks." House answered. "And please, don't look at me like that. Like you're any better, I doubt you've told your parents."

"I have no parents, remember?" Joanna's facial expression indicated that her mood was getting worse.

"IHRR" House made a buzzing noise. "Wrong, you just don't want to talk to them, like me. Call it even?" he suggested.

"Let's hope our kid doesn't inherit our family skills..." Joanna mumbled.

After a pause she looked up at House again. "Do you think you'll tell them eventually?"

House thought it over for a short while.

"Probably," he concluded.

"What do you think they'll say?"

"My mother will be thrilled. She'll ask for pictures, weekly updates...and she'll probably begin knitting baby socks right away. My father on the other hand, will ask why I haven't married you yet. Then he'll spend the rest of his life blaming me for having knocked up a poor innocent girl and not living up to my responsibilities." House explained in an indifferent tone.

"That's awful!" Joanna exclaimed.

"Not really. He's always going to find something he can blame me for. Might as well be this as anything else..."

House turned to look at the bag. The last drops were making their way through the tube.

"There, you'ree all filled up," he said and began removing the tubes from her skin. He noticed that she was looking at him the entire time it took for him to remove the cannula and put the equipment away. She didn't say a word, but it was obvious that she wanted something. "What?" he asked. "I know that look. That is the "Yes-doctor-I-know-I-came-in-for-something-else-but-can-you-check-something-more-for-me-please?-look"."

She smiled. "Well, it's just that I've experienced a little discomfort over these past few days..."

"The whole state has," he replied. "It's called "heat". There's no cure, unfortunately, but a cold shower or some shadow will deaden the symptoms."

"I know it's probably nothing, but..." she looked at him, beggingly. "Please? I don't want to risk anything."

"Oh, allright," he sighed and wheeled the ultrasound machine from the corner of the examination room closer to the table. "Lift up your shirt then."

A few seconds later they could both see the countours of the foetus on the tiny screen.

"See? Heartbeat, movement...pretty much the most you can expect from a creature with a brain the size of a peanut..."

"I wonder what she'll look like." Joanna's voice was low and almost solemn.

"How do you know it's a "she"?" House asked.

"I don't. I don't want to know either. I just like to imagne that it's a "she"."

"Right." House's voice indicated that he wasn't quite happy with that explanation, but he let it pass. He took the probe away from her abdomen and turned of the machine.

"She'll have my brown eyes, right? Since brown dominates to blue..." Joanna asked as she pulled her shirt back down.

"Not necessarily. Not if either of your biological parents had blue eyes as well." House explained.

"Hm." Joanna carefully slided down from the table and grabbed her purse and sweater from a chair. "In that case I hope one of them did. I like your eyes." She wasn't saying it in a flirting or wheedling way, she was simply establishing facts.

"Well, I like yours. So one of us is bound to lose. And I should tell you, I don't lose very often." he said.

Joanna smiled at him, and ran her hand over his arm as she passed him.

"See you in two weeks, Greg," she said before she left the room.

---

Wilson happened to be standing in the lobby when Joanna stepped out of the elevator and headed towards the front door. He hadn't actually spoken to this woman who was in such a strange relationship with his best friend, but he had made Cameron point her out to him once.

He tried to study her without her noticing, when she suddenly stopped in the middle of the room for no appearant reason.

He went a little closer to see what was going on, and, to his horror, noticed that she was standing in a pond of blood, with a small stream of the red fluid running down her leg underneath her skirt. Two seconds later she dropped on the floor. He ran towards her, but was to late to catch her.

_To be continued_

* * *

_In the words of Chase: "Damtaram!". He he._ _Reviews are apprechiated._


	10. Glass wall gaze

_Short chapter today, but the next one will be longer, I think..._

**Glass wall gaze**

House was standing by the glass wall, watching the two male thirds of his team rushing about inside the room, hasting about, talking in loud, stressed voices, all while Wilson was trying to conduct them

In the middle of it all lay Joanna on a bed, completely still, with her eyes closed and her hands folded over her belly. Underneath her, the white sheet was slowly turning more and more red. For a moment House thought he could see a tear running down her cheek, but he wasn't sure whether he was imagening it or not.

As he stood there, someone came up beside him. It was Cameron. She looked up at him, and the look on her face was more filled with more compassion than he had seen in a long time. He looked away from her and went back to staring through the window.

"I heard she came straight from your appointment," she said, in a low voice.

"And?" He sounded suspicous, as if she had accused him of something.

"Nothing! I'm sure there wasn't anything you could have done."

"You're damn right there was nothing I could have done..." he said, between his teeth. His voice was ice-cold.

Cameron took a breath as if she wanted to say something more, but she changed her mind, opened the door in front of her and went inside. Two seconds later, she, too, was blending in with the chaos in there.

House turned away from the window, and slowly limped towards the conference room. As he opened the door, he noticed that someone had left a radio on in there, due to the sudden emergency. A ballad was playing, and he recognized the singer, it was Katie Melua.

_I cried for you  
And the sky cried for you,  
And when you went  
I became a hopeless drifter.  
But this life was not for you,  
Though I learned from you,  
That beauty need only be a whisper._

_Without you now I see,  
How fragile the world can be  
And I know you've gone away  
But in my heart you'll always st..._

Katie Melua didn't get any further. Houses cane slammed against the top of the radio, and cut the thing in two halfs halfway down.

---

What House didn't know was that someone had been witnessing his outburst, and was still observing him as he sat down at the table and began spinning his cane in hand.

Stacy had been looking for House to get him to sign some papers when Joanna was wheeled through the corridor and into the examination room. She had been watching him from a distance as he was staring through the glass wall. Then, when he moved to the conference room she had followed him. Now it was her who was staring through a glass wall.

She could tell by the look on his face what he had been thinking when he saw the bloody sheets. She had been thinking about the same thing. It was several years ago now, back in the days when the two of them were together – before Mark. One morning as she woke up by Greg's side, she noticed that her legs seemed moist. She pulled the quilt away, and screamed when she saw the red liquid substance everywhere.

He drove her to the hospital, where a doctor confirmed what they already knew. She had experienced a spontaneous abortion of a foetus she didn't even know she was carrying.

"I'd guess you were a month or two along..." the stripling in the white coat had told her. She and Greg had exhanged looks – they both remembered (or didn't remember) a drunken night on the town six weeks earlier.

A little later they drove back home – both more relieved than sad, as she recalled it. They had never discussed the incident ever since. It was as if they had come to a common understanding that they couldn't miss what they had never had. In fact, Stacy hadn't thought about what had happened that morning for several years. But now she saw Greg sitting there, with the same look on his face as that morning, in the car. She wasn't sure what kind of a look it was, he was wrinkling his forehead into a frown, and seemed to be squinting at some invisible object in front of him. He didn't radiate sadness or anger, nor relief nor any other kind of emotion.

She stood there and watched him for a few more minutes, for a moment she considered going in there and try and talk to him, but she knew she wouldn't know what to say. After some time, she heard a door open somewhere behind her, and she hurried away from the glass wall and towards the elevators.

---

House turned when he heard footsteps in the corridor, just in time to see Wilson enter the room.

"Well?" he asked his colleague.

* * *

_As usual, reviews are apprechiated._


	11. Not done with this case

**Not done with this case**

"She's okay," Wilson began. Before he got any further, Cameron and Foreman also entered the room.

"We got her stabilized," Cameron said. "Both her and the foetus."

"Chase is with her now," Foreman continued.

"Hm. Well, good." House said, shortly. Cameron had expected – or at least hoped for - a more exuberant reaction, while both Wilson and Foreman thought House had been more effusive than anticipated. House got up from the chair and headed towards the sink. "The question is – where do we go from here? How can we make sure it doesn't happen again?"

"Bedrest?" Cameron suggested. House shook his head.

"Won't help. It wasn't the fact that she walked around that caused this – it was the enzyme treatment."

"But...we've been treating her since before she got pregnant," Foreman reminded him. "Why would this happen now?"

"She's been recieving treatment on a regular basis for a long time. The IV enzyme is present in her body at all times by now." House leaned over the sink and splashed cold water in his face. "The dose she got this morning tipped the scale."

"Well, if you can't treat her without her body rejecting the pregnancy, what are you going to do?" Wilson asked as he, Cameron and Foreman sat down at the table.

"Look, if you're going to deputize for Chase, the least you can do is fake the accent." House told him as he came back towards them.. "What we'll do is pretty simple; Stop treating her."

"Then the Gaucher's symptoms will come back. Her liver and her spleen will swell, it'll kill her!" Cameron was confused. "It'll kill them both..."

"Really, Cameron? 'Cause that was my plan. Think of all the responsibility it would free me of!" House said, scornfully. "Let me finish. What we'll do is that we'll stop treating her for some time, while keeping her here so we can keep track of her condition. Then, when she's been without IV for sometime, and her body can't take it anymore, we begin treating her again."

"In other words, first we're going to almost kill her one way, then almost kill the foetus another?" Foreman summed up.

"Yep." House confirmed as he sat down. "And then we do the same thing over and over, until the kid is viable."

It took the other three a moment to consider House's experiment.

"What about the pains she'll experience? It'll be far worse than the last time," Cameron pointed out.

"And with the combination of pregnancy, spleen damage and possible kidney impairment, which Gaucher's can cause, we can only give her a limited amout of anodynes," Foreman supported her.

"Ah, Joanna can take it," House said with a hand gesture. "She gets a chance to be a martyr, she gets to sacrifice herself so that her child can live. She's gonna jump right at it."

"Well, in addition to the pains her immune system will get weaker. She might need to be isolated." Wilson remarked.

Before House could reply, the door opened once again. This time Chase entered the room.

"House?" he said. "Joanna wants you."

"Well, that's obvious, isn't it?" House got up and headed towards the door. "If she hadn't wanted me, we wouldn't be here in the first place."

---

Joanna had been moved to a room and was lying still with her eyes closed when House came up to her bed. For a moment he thought she had fallen asleep – when suddenly she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"Hey..." she whispered, smiling a little.

"Hey."

She tried to sit up a little bit, then realized she didn't have the energy to do so, and lay back down.

"I don't know why I asked to see you..." she admitted. "Seemed like the appropriate thing to do, I guess. I don't know."

"That's fine." He pulled a chair out from the corner and sat down next to her. She smiled to him again.

"I managed to get back in here, huh?"

"Well, if that was your goal, you certainly reached it. You won't be out of here in a long time," he told her.

"How come?"

He quickly explained to her how the procedure would go onward, of course without understating at all, that wasn't his style. Even so, she didn't seem to be scared from what he told her.

"I'll do it!" was her immidiate response.

"Of course you will." He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Now, the first two weeks shouldn't bother you, as you have the enzyme in your body at the moment and it'll take that long for it to dissapear. But we'll keep you here anyway, in case the kid decides to pull a stunt like that again."

She nodded. "All right."

A silence occured, and it felt a bit awkward. He uncrossed his arms and started patting a rythm on his lap, she turned her head and stared up at the ceiling.

Eventually he broke the silence.

"Do you want to pretend that this is one of our sessions? It's my turn to ask the questions."

"Sure," she agreed, gratefully. "Go ahead."

"Why do you want a kid?"

Her smile faded in an instant. "Is it really that hard for you to see why anyone would want children?" she asked.

"That's not what I said at all. I asked: Why do YOU want a kid?"

"Oh, like that, you mean." She stared up at the ceiling again while thinking it through. Then she looked at him again.

"It's not just because I want someone I can belong to, or who'll belong to me. It's not just because I'm lonely and can't think of many good reasons to get up in the morning. That's some of it, but not all." She paused and bit her lip for a second, then turned to face him again.

"I guess it's...well, there's tons of parents out there who should never have kids. You see all these screwed-up people everywhere and you just think "What the heck did her mother do to her?" And I...I guess I always knew that I could do better, that I could do well, if I only had a child." She sighed. "I'm not making much sense, am I? Let's just put it this way: I know that I can love a child. That's why I want one."

"Hm." He considered what she had told him for a second or two. Then he got up and headed towards the door. "I guess I'll see you later. It's not like you're going anywhere."

"So, you want to waste your two last questions, then?" she asked, grinning.

"I'll save them for later."

When he reached the door, she called out after him. "Greg?"

He turned just as the door was about to shut behind him.

"Why did you ask me that question?" she wondered.

"If we're going to go ahead with this, I'd like to know why I'm doing it," he said. Then he left.

* * *

_See that "Review"-button down there? It's calling your name, I think ;)_


	12. Different ways to end days

**Different ways to end days**

At 10.19 pm, on september 16th, **Joanna Carson** looked up at the watch hanging on the white wall of the isolation room, just like she had done every fifth minute or so for the past week. Tonight was her last night in this room where she had been prisoned for what seemed like an eternity.

Maybe, just maybe, she'd be able to get some sleep tonight.

The pains were wearing her out completely, shooting up and down her arms and legs like lightning – all the time, non stop. She'd been on and of the treatment for so long now – off until she couldn't take it anymore, and her body threatened to break down completely. The last few days before each infusion she could hardly wait, she counted hours and minutes, like kids do before Christmas. Then, when she'd finally get the precious, healing drops, she wasn't able to enjoy that either; then she felt guilty for risking her child's life, and kept asking herself over and over _"Could I have made them wait for a few more days?"._

She looked around the room. She had spent more than than three months in this room, most of them in excrutiating pain. Tomorrow it would be over, House had calculated that the risks would be low enough by now. Only ten hours or so left now. She tried to change into a more comfortable position – very carefully, moving her aching arms and legs slowly, oh so slowly. Then she closed her eyes, determent to get some sleep.

At 10.19 pm, on september 16th, **Allison Cameron** was at home in her kitchen, sipping tea from a mug and flipping through the newspapers. When she got to the page with pictures of newborns, she started to think about the baby Joanna was carrying. House's baby. Cameron wondered what House would be like as a father. She hoped he'd do well, that he'd be able to love his kid, and – just as importantly – tell him or her that. Just because he never said a kind word to anyone while he was at work didn't mean he'd act the same way around his own flesh and blood, did it? _"Or maybe it does," _she thought to herself. _"Maybe I'm just being naive as usual."_ She sighed and put the newspapers away, put the mug into the dishwasher, and went to get ready for bed.

At 10.19 pm, on september 16th, **Stacy Warner **was finishing up for the day and was getting ready to leave work. She was rushing down the corridor, trying to put her coat on without dropping her purse, then suddenly she stopped, just as she was passing the isolation room. Through the glass wall, she could see Joanna. Stacy hadn't seen the woman who was carrying Greg's child in a long time. She sure had gotten big in the last few months. Cuddy had mentioned that she'd be released on of these days. Appearantly the baby was strong enough to make it by now.

Suddenly Joanna began shifting around, turning herself towards the window. Stacy quickly averted her eyes and continued to rush towards the elevators. _"Maybe it's about time Mark and I move back to Short Hills soon," _she thought to herself as she pushed the "Down"-button.

At 10.19 pm, on september 16th, **Eric Foreman and Robert Chase** entered the men's lockerroom at PPTH. Chase sat down at a bench, kicked of his comfortable sneakers that he wore at work and put on some trendier ones. Foreman turned on his cell phone and read through his text messages.

"Did you check on Joanna lately?" he asked his colleague as he stuffed the phone down his pocket and went over to his locker to find his jacket.

"About an hour ago, or maybe it's two..." Chase replied.

"Hm. Well, I guess the hourly check-ups aren't that important anymore. After all she's being released tomorrow."

"Yeah." Chase got up from the bench and came over to the lockers as well. "Joanna's cool, don't you think?"

Foreman sent him an indulgent look. "She's a patient. What I think of her is irrelevant. But sure, she seems...nice."

"At least that kid will have one sane parent," Chase said as he hung op his white coat. "I don't envy the poor thing. Imagne having House as a father!"

"I hear you. Though House did probably save that kid's life. This experiment or treatment or whatever you want to call it that Joanna's been through for months now...It's been brutal, but it worked," Foreman was honest enough to admit.

"Well, House hates to lose. Especialy to a disease." Chase shut his locker with a "bang" and put his jacket on. "I'll see you in the morning."

At 10.19 pm, on september 16th, **Lisa Cuddy and James Wilson **met in the hospital lobby on their way to the parking lot.

"Hey..." she said, surprised to see him there so late.

"Hey. You stayed in late too?"

"Yeah, tons of things to deal with..." she sighed. "Appearantly the patient in the next room heard what House and Joanna were up to that night in February, and she has complained to the board."

"Shit!" Wilson exclaimed. "That sounds like trouble!"

"Nah, not really. I think I managed to convince them that thee patient was crazy. I told them that the medicines she was on sometimes caused hallusinations." Cuddy grinned. "Maybe I should consider letting House clean up his own mess every once in a while, huh?"

"Yeah, maybe..." They reached the door and began searching for their cars.

"Speaking of Joanna; House told me she was going home tomorrow," Wilson said.

"Yeah, I heard. The kid is reckoned to be viable by now." Cuddy stopped for a second. "Can you believe House is actually going to be a dad?"

"I know...It's..." Wilson began when a car pulled up in front of them, forcing them to spread so it could pass between them.

"Well, see you tomorrow, then." Cuddy had spotted her BMW a few rows further down.

"Yeah, see you."

At 10.19 pm, on september 16th, **Gregory House's **phone rang. He took his hands off the keys of his Rönisch, and considered getting up, but decided to let the machine get it. It turned out to be his mother. As he had expected, she was "slightly shocked but thrilled, dear" to hear about Joanna's pregnancy, and she told him she would "try calling him again tomorrow."

The day before (at 6.00 am, just to be sure no one would pick up) he had left a message at his parents' answering maching telling them they were to be grandparents. Joanna had been nagging at him to do so for a long time now, so he decided to just get it overwith. There wasn't much time left.

About a month and a half from now, there'd be a child on this earth with his Y-chromosomes in it's body. Up until recently, House hadn't been too worried. After all, there was something tempting about being forever tied to eternity that way. He supposed there was something instictive in all men – wanting to spread the semen and preserve the species. Also, if he was to chose a woman to be the mother of his child, he would probably have chosen someone like Joanna. She was mild and caring, but still tough. Over the past few months she had proved that she would do anything for her child. And she was not bad to look at, either.

But lately, that annoying little voice that had been bothering him so much when he first began checking out Joanna had come sneaking back into his head.

"_You're no father!" _the voice would tell him. _"Isn't a father supposed to be able to care about other people?Every time you try to do that, it backfires! You're just a miserable, sad person who's meant to be on your own!" _

Usually he was able to block this voice out and make it go away as he kept himself busy thinking of something else, but with every day that passed this became more and more difficult.

House remained by the piano for a while longer, then he decided to get to bed early.

Maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to get some sleep tonight.


	13. New life in different ways – part one

_This time the chapter is divided in two. I'm not sure when I'll be able to post the next part, maybe in a few days._

**New life in different ways – part one**

Nothing on TV, nothing on the schedule, nothing to do at all. House was sitting in his office staring out of the window watching a snowplough clear the street. He was bored out of his mind when the phone rang, a morning in November. Just as he picked up, Wilson came into the room. "What's…" he began, then noticed the phone and quietly sat down opposite House.

It was Joanna's voice at the other end.

"Greg? I've gone into labour." Her voice sounded very distant, as if the connection was bad.

"Aha…You could try taking two aspirins and calling me again in the morning, but I doubt it's gonna help…"

"I am not interessted in your stupid sarcasm right now!" Suddenly she was more tempestuous than he had ever heard her before. "This is important, so listen: There are five minutes between the contractions, so I'm in a taxi on my way to the hospital. I'll be there in – uhm – about five or ten minutes, depending on the traffic. Meet me in the lobby."

"Why do I have to meet you?"

"Oh, I don't know, because you're the baby's father and you should be there when it's born?"

"Wait, stop, slow down!" House did not like the way this was going. Not that he was sure he DIDN'T want to be present, but he needed a few seconds to consider his options "When did we ever agree on that!?! I don't remember having signed that contract!"

"Greg, for crying out loud!" Now she really seemed to be out of patience. "I will be there in… you know what, just come down now! If you're not there, I refuse to do this!"

"To do what? Give birth?" House asked, clearly confused. Wilson jerked when he overheard the question and suddenly realized who House was talking to.

"That's right!" Joanna replied. "I'll hold it in 'till I explode all over the lobby. Seriously, be there." Then she hung up.

House sighed as he put the phone down. Wilson was eager to know what was going on.

"Was that Joanna? Has it started?" he asked. House nodded.

"Yes and yes," he said. "She wants me to meet her downstairs."

"Well, go!" Wilson grinned at him. "Go and…hold her hand or… whatever it is you're supposed to do. Go on!"

"I'm going, I'm going!" House got up and began limping towards the door. But neither the pace nor his facial expression indicated that he went eagerly. He knew that this was it, after this there'd be no "what if's" or "maybe's".

Suddenly Wilson slided up in front of him and blocked the door. House sighed.

"Now what?"

Wilson hesitated.

"Just….good luck. It'll be great, you don't have to worry."

"I'm not worried."

"Well, then you're probably the first father-to-be in history who isn't." Wilson averted his eyes before he continued. "I'm just saying. "Daddy" is not exactly your style, anyone who knows you know that. I mean, you're the kinda guy who embraces his own misery and lonelyness and…"

"Is this an attempt to make me feel better?" House interrupted. "Because if it is it's a lousy one." He realized that he had just given himself away and confirmed that he really was worried, but he didn't care. Wilson seemed to have gotten that anyway.

"I'm sorry, it gets better, I promise," Wilson said with a short grin. "I just mean that…even though you're no typical dad, you'll get the hang of it. You'll find your balance. I know you by now, so… I know you can do this."

Now Wilson remembered why he had come in there first place. He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a tiny little gift box that he handed to House.

"Here."

House looked confused.

"You're asking me to marry you? It's kind of a bad time, someone else is having my baby as we speak…"

"Would you drop the jokes? I'm trying to have a sentimental moment here!" Wilson chuckled. "This is a one-time thing, so deal with it!"

"All right," House agreed. "What is it?"

Wilson opened the box and revealed a tiny gold locket shaped like a heart.

"This thing has been in my family for like umpteen generations. I'm supposed to pass it on to my own children, but it doesn't look as if there'll be any." He closed the box and held it out. "Take it. Give it to your kid."

House took the box, but before could answer, the phone rang again. He put the box in his pocket, went back to the table and picked up.

"Hel…Yes, I'm coming, I'm coming!" he said and slammed the phone down. "She's here…" he told Wilson.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Hurry!"

---

When the elevator door opened on the first floor, Joanna was already waiting outside it.

"What took you so long?!?" she snarled as she dragged her little suitcase in after her.

"Gee, labor makes you irritable, doesn't it?" House pushed the "7" button to get them to the obstetrical ward. Joanna didn't answer; she leaned on the handrail on the side wall of the elevator and panted, clearly in pain. House sighed.

"How long between the contractions?" he asked.

"I don't know, I have other things on my mind then counting at the moment," Joanna mumbled between clenched teeth. "I had the last one when I stepped out of the taxi."

"That's not a lot of time. Why the heck did you wait so long to come?" House said, angrily. "You're lucky the taxi driver didn't have to act as a midwife!"

"The book says to wait until there's five minutes between the contractions!" Joanna defended herself and straightened her back as the pain passed.

"Oh the book says…well, you have to do what the book says… Come on, Joanna! If the book said to give birth with your legs crossed, would you do it?"

"Of course!" she snapped.

Just then, the elevator jerked and stopped, causing them both having to grab the handrail not to fall over. Joanna's suitcase tipped and slid across half the floor. Soon it became clear to them what had happened. The elevator had stopped.

"Aw, come on!" House began pressing every button on the panel, hoping to get them moving again, but the elevator remained still. He tried a button with a picture of a speaker on it, that according to the instructions engraved on the wall would "Create contact with central", but nothing happened.

"Greg, you have to do something. You have to get us out of here!" Joanna still hadn't let go of the handrail, but was clinging to it as if it was a precious treasure. House grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open.

---

Cuddy was just about to leave her office for a meeting when the phone rang. When she picked up she was surprised to hear House's voice at the other end.

"House, I really don't have the time to talk right now, I'm on my way out and…"

"I just wanted to inform you that the elevator that goes from the lobby, the one closest to the east wall, isn't working at the moment," House said, calmly.

"Why are you calling to tell me that? Tell someone at the reception, have them call maintenance or something. House, I really have to go." Cuddy checked her watch. It was five minutes more than she had hoped it would be.

"I would if I could, but you see…I'm in it." House explained.

"Oh. All right, I'll get someone to come over and…"

"Also," House continued, still calm, "There's someone else in here with me. Joanna is here. And before you ask, yes, she's in labor."

"Oh my ...!" Suddenly Cuddy realized this was more important than her meeting. "I'm on it. " Quickly she hung up and began searching for the right numbers to call.

---

Half an hour went by. Joanna's contractions came and went, and with each passing one she'd sink further down on the floor. By now she was practicly squatting.

"It hurts so bad!" she complained. "What's taking them so long?"

"No fucking idea!" House tried dialing Cuddy's number for the umteenth time in the last ten minutes, but once again he got a busy signal.

Joanna crossed her arms over her belly and uttered a whining sound. House put the phone away and took a step closer to her. His expression milded slightly.

"Is it starting again already?"

"No, I just whine for attetion..Yes it's starting again!" Joanna shouted. House thought for a second, then leaned his cane against the wall and began rolling up his sleeves.

"Let me have a look," he demanded. Joanna looked up at him.

"What?"

"Just lay back against the wall, let me see what's going on." House sqatted in front of her. Joanna shook her head. Her facial expression radiated panic.

"No!" she said. "No way!"

"What, are you shy?" House asked. "I've seen you naked before."

"Greg, there's no way I'm giving birth in an elevator. It's not gonna happen."

"I'm afraid that's not for you to decide." He brushed his hand up her leg and came a little closer to her. "Look, it may not even come to that. But I have to examine you."

Wavering, Joanna leaned back agains the elevator's back wall and pulled her knees up. House kneeled and began to pull up her long, loose skirt .


	14. New life in different ways – part two

_I'm sorry it took so long, but here's finally the second part of the chapter. I probably won't have time to write much this week but maybe next weekend. Just so you're warned._

* * *

**New life in different ways – part two**

Cuddy was frustrated. She had tried calling the hospital's maintenance office several times, without anyone picking up. Eventually she had gone over there herself only to find a note on the door saying "Out to lunch." When she was finally able to track down a janitor, he told her elevators wasn't his area, and that she needed to call the company that had installed it.

After having spent several minutes skimming through papers to find out which company that was, she had been waiting in line for a quarter of an hour while listening to some kind of terrible country music from the other end, when finally someone picked up. Cuddy quickly explained the problem, but was disappointed one more time when she heard the answer.

"Unfortunately all of our workers are spread around town today. You'd think all the elevators had decided to gang up on us," the young girl giggled. Cuddy sighed.

"Well, this is a hospital. And there's a patient that needs urgent help trapped in that elevator, so I demand you send someone over right away!"

"No need to take that tone." The girl seemed indulgent. "But all right, I'll put you on top of the list. Someone will be over shortly."

"Thank you." Cuddy had to force herself to say it. "Do you know when they'll…" but the stripling had already hung up.

---

"Okay, Joanna, this is going to sound like a big, fat cliché, but – PUSH!" House demanded as Joanna went into another contraction. Her legs had begun to shake and he placed his hands on her thighs to keep them still. Joanna bit her teeth together and pushed, her hands were so tightly fisted that her nails made marks on her skin.

"I can't do this, it's too hard!" she exclaimed.

"You can." House tried to sound more certain than he was. "You have to. There's no other option."

"This wasn't how it was supposed to be!" Joanna kept on. "I never planned to give birth in some cold, tiny elevator! There was supposed to be a comfortable bed and epidural and laughter gas and… I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this…"

House crawled up to her side, placed his hands on her shoulders and shook her.

"Stop it!" he shouted. He stopped shaking her but kept holding her still. "Stop that right now! You don't have to tell me that this wasn't how you wanted it to be, that this wasn't your plan! You know what? My plan didn't include any of this either! My plan didn't include you, or a baby or any of this. But this is the way it is, and we've got to deal with it as best we can!" He stared deeply into her eyes as he continued in a calmer, but still firm, voice. "You CAN do this. I know you by now, so… I know you can do this."

Joanna didn't say anything, but seemed to try and pull herself together and nodded. Then she felt another contraction coming on. She leaned back against the wall and began panting again. House went back to kneeling between her legs and instructed her to push again.

---

Cuddy was walking anxiously back and forth through the lobby, waiting for the elevator repairman to show up, when she was approached by someone else, namely Cameron, Chase and Foreman.

"Have you seen House?" Cameron asked her. "He hasn't been around all morning."

And what a wonderful morning it had been, both Chase and Foreman thought to themselves, exchanging a look. It was typical of Cameron to organize a search like this instead of enjoying the freedom of having no boss around. Cameron knew what they were thinking. It was elementary school all over again, her being the one to go and get teachers who were late for class, while the other students protested.

"He didn't tell you where he was going?" Cuddy sighed. "Of course he didn't. He's House." She quickly explained to them the status of the situation.

"So they're trapped in there?" Cameron pointed towards the elevator, not quite believing what she was hearing.

"And have been for almost an hour?" Foreman was just as shocked.

"Maybe we should call House's cell, see how they're doing, Chase suggested.

"Of course!" Cuddy exclaimed. "I should have done that ages ago. My brain doesn't seem to work that well under pressure," she claimed as she dialed the number on her cell phone.

---

"You've got to push harder, Joanna! Nothing's happening!" House said. It was getting warm in the elevator, and he pulled his jacked off and tossed it on the floor.

"Do you see her yet?" Joanna had to force the words out; she barely had enough energy to hold her head up.

"I see a head," House confirmed, "But it's not getting any closer, you have to push harder!"

Joanna exerted herself, but she could tell that it didn't make any difference. She was simply too tired, she had no energy left at all. The realization made her panic. What if the baby died because she wasn't able to push it out?

House was getting worried as well, but he managed to keep his head clear and tried to find a solution. Of course there were no forceps available in the elevator, nor could he do an emergency c-section. He pondered for a few seconds, then he made a decision. He grabbed his cane which had been leaning against the wall, and placed it across the top of Joanna's belly, underneath her bosom. Then he placed his hands on each side of the cane.

"Right," he said. "On the count of three, you push again, as hard as you can." It wasn't a question, it was an order. Joanna understood what he had in mind, and it scared her. But she decided not to protest. Instead she simply nodded.

House fastened his grip on the cane. "One," he began. "Two…three!"

As Joanna started pushing, House pulled the cane towards him, helping her to push the baby out.

"It's working!" he exclaimed, aroused. "Keep it up!"

Suddenly he noticed that his cell phone was ringing in his pocket. He grabbed it and flipped it open.

"I can't talk now, I'm delivering a baby!" he shouted into the phone without even checking the display. Then he threw the phone away, hard enough for it to slam against the elevator door behind him and leave a dent, before he went back to focusing on Joanna.

---

In the lobby, Cuddy put the phone down with a puzzled expression on her face.

"What did he say?" Cameron asked. It took Cuddy a few seconds to revive from her shock.

"He said…" she looked up at the other three's anticipating faces. "He said he was delivering a baby…"

---

"Here we go…" House was almost as exhausted as Joanna when a bit later he placed his hands around the baby's shoulders and pulled it out.

"What is it?" Joanna asked as she let herself sink back against the wall. House looked down on the helpless little creature in his hands.

"A girl," he said. "It's…it's a girl."

"I knew it." Joanna grinned and yawned. "I knew it all along.

House looked around the room. It had become rather chaotic in there during the past hour. Different objects were lying around everywhere. Joanna's suitcase. Joanna's panties. His phone. The battery that had fallen out of it. His cane. His jacket. And in his hands he held a little girl. A living little thing. For some reason he wasn't able to get his mind wrapped around this. For seconds, he just sat there, watching his daughter wrench around.

Then the baby filled her lungs with air for the first time, and screamed, making a loud and shivering noise that even House's colleagues in the lobby could hear. House realized that the child wasn't very comfortable the way he was holding her, and he quickly leaned forward and placed her on her mother's chest.

All of Joanna's insecurity and fear that she had felt over the last couple of hours had suddenly disappeared. She put her arms around her baby, and for the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, she truly felt complete.

"Hi there, my beautiful girl," she said in a calm voice, as if she was talking to an old friend. "Finally you're here; we've been waiting for you."

House came up to Joanna's side and sat down next to her on the elevator floor.

"She's really tiny," he declared, matter-of-factly. "Isn't she really really tiny?"

"She's just right." Joanna grinned and kissed her daughter's forehead. Then she leaned her head on House's shoulder. "She's perfect. That's what she is. Can you believe we made something this perfect without even meaning to?"

She looked up at him, he looked at her too. His hands alighted softly on her shoulders and they moved closer to each other, close enough to feel each other breath on their lips, closer and closer and…

Then the elevator suddenly began moving again, waking them up from their trance. Joanna turned the baby to lie over her shoulder, as House sighed and leaned back against the wall.

"This elevator sure has good timing…" he mumbled.

---

"Now I definitely don't have any reason to doubt that she's mine," House joked, sitting next to Joanna's hospital bed a few hours later. Their daughter had now opened her eyes, and they were bright blue, like House's.

"Looks like I won that bet," Joanna said with a yawn as she rocked her baby carefully. "I think the eyes stand out even more on her than on you. Probably because she's so small."

House grabbed a clipboard from the nightstand. "So, I guess we should fill out these forms that they gave us," he said. "What do I put under 'Surname'?"

"Put 'House'" Joanna said. When he looked up at her slightly surprised, she shrugged. "I never liked 'Carson' all that much."

"OK." House scribbled down his name. "What about first name, then?"

Joanna became very eager all of a sudden. "I want a sweet name!" she said. "I mean, literally sweet. Like…'Candy' or 'Cookie' or 'Honey'."

House just stared at her. "Absolutely not!" he said in a very firm voice.

"All right, how about a flower name, then?" Joanna continued. "Poppy or Primrose or Violet or…"

"Did you sneak some of that laughter gas after all? Or are you on heavier stuff?" House asked. Joanna sighed.

"Let's hear your brilliant suggestions, then," she demanded.

House got up from his chair, leaned on the bed and studied the little girl while he pondered. Then he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the little box Wilson had given him earlier. Joanna watched him as he took the necklace and placed it around the baby's neck.

"Wilma," he said. "Wilma House."

Joanna held the baby up in front of her to take a closer look on the little face.

"She does look like a Wilma," she agreed. "I guess I'm OK with that." But by then, House had already filled out the form.


	15. More glass wall gaze

_I'm sorry about the delay, but I've been working so much lately and just haven't had the time to write. Hopefully I'll have more time from now on..._**

* * *

**

**More glass wall gaze**

_Yep, she__ is __still there. __Not that __he__ didn't think she would be, but sometimes __he__ just ha__s __to check.__ In fact __he's __been__ coming here three times today, and it's not even noon yet. Every time __he __come__s__ she's still right there, number two from the left on the first row, wrapped in a pink blanket. __Big blue eyes that stare up at __him.__ Joanna was right, the eyes do stand out on her, like on a zombie in a soap opera. __Only more beautiful, of course.__ This girl's eyes are not dead, __they're full of __life. _

_Someone has put a nametag on her plastic cart. "Wilma House" it says, right above the baby's head. She's a House. It strikes __him__ as strange. __He is__ the only House around here, always has been. __He is__ "House", that's __his__ identity. How can that little creature also be "House"? It just doesn't make sense._

_She's staring at __him, __he__ stare__s __back. For a moment __he__ wonder__s__if she recognizes __him__ from before, but that's just silly. Of course she doesn't. Dozens of people stand here staring at the babies every day, like tourists in a zoo. Why should she remember __him?_

Yesterday, Cameron, Chase and Foreman asked him to take them to see her. They reacted very differently to her. Cameron got all tearful once she laid eyes on her. House had no idea why some women reacted that way to babies. Not even Joanna had been that weepy when she first saw her. Chase had seemed a bit embarrassed about the whole situation, didn't know where to stand or how to act, and constantly avoided eye-contact with House. He mumbled something about the baby looking "very smart", to which House replied "Of course, she's my daughter." Foreman, on the other hand, seemed secure enough as picked the girl up and rocked her, making faces at her (which made House sigh deeply.). Seconds later, Foreman had laughed and said "Yep, she's your daughter, all right, House. She just peed all over me!"

---

_He __check__s __his__ watch. __He's __been standing here for ten minutes. __He__ should probably be heading back to the office soon… But five more minutes won't hurt._

Someone comes up behind him. He doesn't realize that it's Stacy until she's standing right next to him, just as she notices him.

"Greg!" She sounds surprised and even slightly guilty, as if she's been caught doing something she shouldn't be doing. "I was just passing by and I thought I'd…" She gestures at the window in front of them, and the stinging blue eyes on the first row catches her attention. "Is that… her?"

"No, that's some other Wilma House. Of course that's her!"

"She's...gorgeous."

He wonders if he should repeat the "Of course, she's my daugther"-joke from before, but decides not to. Stacy looks up at him, but averts her eyes when he looks back at her.

"Cuddy told me about the elevator…" she grins slightly. "You can't do a thing without drama, can you?"

He doesn't reply. Stacy clears her throat and continues.

"So…I've resigned from my position here. We're moving back to Short Hills at the end of the month." He frowns at her. "Why?"

She shrugs a bit. "Mark's getting better. We thought it was time."

"Just like that?"

"Yes, just like that."

He turns back to the window. "Right."

They stand there in silence for a few seconds, before Stacy turns to him.

"Well, I should go." She hesitates for a bit, then leans towards him and gives him a quick peck on the cheek. It feels unnatural, and she regrets it immediately. "Good luck, Greg," she mumbles. "With your daughter and all." And then she's gone.

---

Now, Wilma closes her eyes and dozes off. She's no longer wearing the necklace, the nurses took it of claiming it could strangle her if she twisted around. So now it's hanging by the foot end of her cart, dangling from one of the handles.

She was wearing it the first time Wilson saw her. House remembers him looking all proud as he lifted her up, as if it was his kid or something. Not to mention his face when he heard the name they had picked for her.

"Wilma?" he grinned. "After who, if I may ask?"

"I think it was Joanna's grandmother or great aunt or something…" House mumbled. "I don't really remember."

"Really?" Wilson had a cheerful look on his face. "I thought Joanna had broken off all contact with her family, and wanted nothing more to do with them?"

"Maybe it was a friend from her work, then. I don't know."

"Have you realized that 'Wilma' isn't that different from 'Wilson'? I mean, there's the W and the I and the L…"

"Yes, I know how to spell my own daughter's name, thank you!" House interrupted. Then he changed the subject.

---

He is just about to take of when Joanna emerges from a door further down the hall. She seems glad to see him, and hurries towards him.

"Admiring our little princess, are you?" she grins. "She's no doubt the most beautiful one in there."

"I was just passing by…" he says. "I'm on my way back to the office..."

"Oh." She comes over and stands next to him. "So…has it got to you yet? This parenthood thing? I have to admit, I feel rather taken aback."

_She's__ taken aback? She wanted this for __four __years__, spent a fortune and tons of time trying to make it happen, trying to have a child, and now she feels taken aback? Where does that leave __him???_

"I mean…" she continues. "There's this beautiful little girl right there, so dependent on me, on us, for what, the next 20 years? A week ago she wasn't here, and now she's going to be present for the rest of my life…" She sighs and shakes her head a little. "It's a lot to get your mind wrapped around, isn't it.

_She__ nailed it._

"Oh, don't know," he says, avoiding eye-contact with her. "It's pretty much the way it works, isn't it? I mean, we've known for some time now…"

She grins at him. "Well, great. At least, if I become locked up in some mental ward, she'll still have you to depend on, huh?"

"Yeah…"

_Try the other way around._

"By the way, we're going home tomorrow," she continues. "A friend from my building is coming to pick us up around lunchtime. I'm so happy with the nursery, I just managed to finish it before I left home." She sends him a friendly smile. "You should come see it some time."

_Alarm bells __are __going off__ in his head. __Going over there to admire teddy bear wallpaper and pink fluffy cushions?!? What's next, knitting socks together? _

_Or… on the other hand, she's just asking if __he__'d like to see where __his__ own daughter will be __living, where she'll grow up.__ That's not so bad, is it?_

He shrugs. "Maybe. Sometime."


	16. The strangest of days, part one

_Another two-__parter__ for you pleasure (hopefully ;))._

The strangest of days, part one

Christmas eve was only two days away, and Cameron had decorated the conference room with all sorts of red and green decorations. House looked around it and sighed as he and Wilson sat down at the table for a cup of coffee.

"All this crap – and it's all gone by January anyways… What's the point?" he whined and took a sip. Wilson shook his head.

"So what's Scrooge doing for Christmas? I could come over and bring take-outs?"

House shrugged.

"Sure…"

"…unless you've got plans with Joanna?" Wilson asked. House frowned.

"Why would I have plans with Joanna?"

"Well, for one you have a kid together…" Wilson jokingly reminded him.

"A kid that's not even a month old! She doesn't get Christmas yet, she's still at the "when I scream I get fed"-stage." House took a sip of his coffee. "Wouldn't we all love to be there again sometimes."

"I just thought you might like to be around her that day," Wilson defended himself.

"I haven't seen either of them since Joanna's last treatment. That's nearly two weeks ago. If I'm not seeing her any other day, why Christmas?" House put his mug down and flung his legs onto the table.

Wilson was about to say something more when Cameron suddenly came into the room. Both the men stared at her, or, more precisely on what she was holding in her arms.

"I'm guessing we have something to talk about. You might want some immediate maternity leave?" House joked. "Who's is it? I'm betting a 50 on Chase!"

Cameron came over to the table and turned the bundle so that House could see the face of the baby.

"It's Wilma," she said as she handed her over to House.

"Did she just walk in here on her own?" House asked, confused, while trying to figure out how to balance the girl in his hands.

" Where's Joanna?" Wilson asked, just as surprised as House.

"Joanna stormed in here, handed me the baby and told me to give her to you. She said it was an emergency, and didn't want you to call her. She said she'd be back this evening, and that you shouldn't worry. Then she was gone, just like that." Cameron's voice was calm as she explained the situation.

"What?!?" House's voice on the other hand was anything but calm. "Has the woman gone insane?" His outburst made the baby jerk and scream, and he stood up and handed her back to Cameron, who put the baby over her shoulder to calm her down.

"That doesn't sound like Joanna," Wilson agreed. "Wonder what's gotten into her."

"I mean, what's she thinking? She can't just dump the baby on me like that, like I have nothing to do all day! I'm at work, dammit!" House shouted, while limping back and forth across the floor.

"I'm just telling you what she said," Cameron said as she shook Wilma carefully. "Don't shoot the messenger. And stop the yelling, you're scaring her. It's not her fault either."

House stopped in the middle of the floor and thought it all over for a few seconds, before he looked at Cameron holding the baby, who's crying was fading away.

"You can watch her…" he began, but Cameron cut him off.

"No, I can't. Because A) I'm a doctor, not your personal babysitter, and B) I'm in the lab all day. I have to be there in 15 minutes."

House turned to Wilson, who was still sitting by the table. "How about you?"

"Sorry, can't do it. I have a patient in…"Wilson paused to check his watch "…oh, only five minutes. I should go." He got up, placed his mug on the worktop and rushed out of the room, mumbling "Good luck…" as the door slammed behind him.

House looked back at Cameron.

"Where's Chase?" he asked.

"He's at a lecture, won't be back until one," she reminded him.

"And Foreman?"

"He had a dentist appointment on the other side of town. He just left ten minutes ago."

House sighed, then reached into his pocket and grabbed his cell phone.

"That settles it, I'm calling Joanna," he said as he began to dial the number. But before he managed to press the call button, Cameron had come over to him and pulled the phone out of his hands.

"Oh no, you won't." She slammed the phone shut with her available hand. "She said she didn't want you to call her."

"I don't care what she wants. She dumped the kid on me for no apparent reason, I'm calling her!" House said in a very firm voice. "Give. Me. My. Phone. Back."

Cameron sat down by the table and shifted Wilma over to the other shoulder.

"This is Joanna we're dealing with," she said. "Joanna would never ask you to do anything if she didn't have a good reason." She sighed before she continued. "For crying out loud, House, you know her well enough to trust her that much. We all do."

House sat down on the chair next to her and turned it to face her.

"Why does my trusting Joanna mean that much to you?" he asked. "It's one thing that you two connected, now you're her best friend all of a sudden?"

"I'm not!" Cameron claimed. "It's just…I'm suspecting Joanna did this for a purpose." She averted her eyes before she continued. "You became a dad nearly a month ago, and..."

"Tell me something I didn't…" House began, but Cameron cut him off again.

" You became a dad, and your life barely changed at all. Come on. You only see your daughter when her mother comes in for treatments. You never talk about her when you're at work." She ran her hand down the baby's back. "You freaked out when she started screaming and handed her over to me. You don't know her. You have no relationship with her."

"She's a month old…"House began, but wasn't allowed to finish his sentence this time either.

"Human contact is just as important to an infant as it is to an older child." Cameron got up from her chair and placed the baby in House's arms. "Now is as good a time as any to get to know Wilma."

House sat still for a few seconds, watching his daughter study her own fingers, putting them in her mouth and sucking them, then pulling them back out, all surprised to find out that they were still there. Cameron watched them for a little while, then she headed for the door. This woke House up from his trance.

"As good a time as any? I don't know about that. A time when I don't have to do clinic duty might be better."

"Talk to Cuddy." Cameron suggested as she opened the door. "Of all the excuses you've used to get out of clinic duty, this is actually one of the better ones."

---

"No, I will not let you out of clinic duty." Cuddy didn't even look up from her desk.

"Uhm, didn't you hear what I said?" House couldn't believe he was being turned down. "Joanna just walked in here and…"

"I heard every single word. Poor House is a single dad for the day!" Cuddy looked up at him and grinned. "You do look like a regular Virgin Mary standing there with a baby in your arms." She got up, came around the desk and sat down on top of it, facing him.

"House, she's a month old, she'll be asleep all day. Borrow a cart from the maternity ward, put her in the corner of the exam room, and you're good to go. If she should need anything, I'll grant you breaks." Cuddy came over to him and ran a finger down Wilma's cheek. "She's grown so much," she remarked.

"People come to that clinic with colds, pneumonia, streptococcus. What if someone coughs on her?" House demurred, certain that he had found the winning argument.

"As I said, place her in the corner of the room, away from where the patients sit and she should be safe, much more safe than the kids in the waiting room, or children who use crowded public transportation." Cuddy went back around her desk and sat down."Now go, you're already late and we're swamped today."

House knew he was defeated, so he sendt Cuddy an angry look before he turned and left.

"They're ganging up on me..." he mumbled to himself as he walked down the hallway. "First Joanna, then Cameron, now Cuddy. Women!"

The baby looked up at him with an unhappy expression on her face.

"Not you. Don't take it personally," he said as he entered the elevator.


	17. The strangest of days, part two

The strangest of days, part two

"So, then he asked me if he could get out of his duties and…Oh, there he is! So,tell us, did you have a terrible time?" Cuddy asked House when she and Wilson ran into him in the clinic's reception area later that day. "Did she give you any trouble?"

House was limping towards them, his cane in one hand, pulling the cart he had borrowed with Wilma in it with the other.

"Let's just say I still think you're evil," he replied, with a dark expresseion on his face. Cuddy smiled at him.

"Oh poor thing!" she said in a sarcastic baby voice. "Well, you pulled through, your four hours are up, you're free to go back to your own department."

"How unbelievably kind of you, noble empress…" House mumbled between clenched teeth as he pulled the cart towards the elevator. Wilson followed him.

"I'll ride up with you."

When the elevator doors had closed and Cuddy was out of sight, Wilson turned to House.

"Was it really that bad?" he asked. House smiled slyly.

"Nope. One of the best clinic mornings I've had, actually. All the cowards who were scared of needles, even the kids, pulled themselves together, not to look like a baby in front of...well, a baby. All the old women forgot talking about their non-existing symptoms and just talked about how "cutie-wutie" she was, and I had fun scaring the pregnant women by claiming that she was a newborn." House seemed very satisfied. Wilson sighed, as he leaned over the cart.

"You have a very bad dad, Wilma," he told the girl.

The elevator opened and the two men stepped out on House's floor.

"So I take it she behaved well, then? No crying?" Wilson had even got the sentence out before, as if on cue, the baby woke up and began screaming from the top of her lungs. House sent Wilson a criticizing look.

"Nice job tipping her of like that. I haven't heard a sound from her until now…" He looked down on the screaming baby whose face was turning read. "What do we do to make her stop?"

"Have you fed her at all?" Wilson had to raise his voice a few notches in order for House to hear him. "When they're this young they should be fed every two hours or so, I think."

"Well, this might come as a surprise to you, but Joanna actually brought her breasts with her when she left!" House called back. Wilma's cries kept getting louder, and in desperation he grabbed her and held her up in front of him. To his surprise, this made her stop crying, instead she just whined a little.

Wilson came over and gave House a pat on the shoulder.

"Nick some formula from the maternity ward storage room. Also some get diapers. You could probably raise tadpoles in her rompers by now." He grinned at his friend. "Hang in there, you're not doing too bad."

Wilson went down the corridor, and House hung Wilma over his shoulder as he limped back towards the elevator.

"You, young lady, are what they call high maintenance," he mumbled with a sigh as he went back in.

---

When Cameron, Chase and Foreman had all returned to the Diagnostics department, they agreed to get something to eat in the conference room, while waiting for a new case to present itself. When they entered the room, they were surprised to find House in there, sitting on top the table, where various objects were scattered around. There were diapers, baby clothes, towels and formula bags everywhere. On one arm, House held Wilma, in the other hand he held a large syringe, of the kind they usually used to flush ear canals. The syringe was filled with white fluid. The needleless tip of it was inside the baby's mouth.

"Whoa…"Foreman exclaimed. "That's a doctor's daughter, all right."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to feed her with that thing?" Cameron asked as she came over to the table. House looked up at her.

"Of course formula is only the second best choice but since I don't produce the real thing my self…"

"I meant the syringe!" Cameron's tone was sharp.

"No worries, it's a fresh one. I didn't dig it out of the garbage."

Cameron gave up going down that line and changed the subject. "Have you heard from Joanna yet?"

"No." House's voice sounded irritated. "If she's not here by four, I'm calling her."

"She said she'd be back this evening!" Cameron protested.

"Fine, five then. But that's as far as I'll stretch."

Foreman came over to the table and picked up one of the diapers between his thumb and index finger.

"How come you've opened like… ten of these?" he asked.

"Well," House began. "Just because I have a medical degree, that obviously doesn't mean I have the intelligence to figure out those tabby thingies."

"But you got it eventually?" Cameron asked. House shook his head and held Wilma up for them to see.

"Lady and gentlemen, your friend and mine, the gaffer tape!"

---

Wilson was done for the day and was about to get into his car when House came out of the hosptial's main exit, still pulling the cart with the baby in it behind him. Wilson noticed that she was tucked in House's jacket

"I take it you haven't heard from…"

"No, I have not heard from Joanna yet!" House interrupted. "Cameron convinced me to wait until five, so I called her then. No answer." He pulled the cart a little closer to him before he continued. "I've been hanging out here waiting for her for almost an hour now, I'm going home. I left a note for her in the reception." He looked up at Wilson. "There's just one problem."

"What?"

"I took the bike today, when I noticed the snow was gone. Granted I'm no baby expert, but I'm pretty sure strapping them to the back of a motorcycle is frowned upon," House said sarcastically.

"Take my car," Wilson suggested. "It doesn't have a baby seat, but it's a whole lot safer that the bike."

"And let you ride the bike? No way!" House shook his head.

"Come on, I won't wreck it. You know you don't want to waste money a taxi."

House lingered for a second, and then sighed as he fished his keys out of his pocket and exchanged them for Wilson's.

Suddenly, House's cell phone let out a beep. He checked it and read the message out loud.

"_We need you back in here, now! Come and I'll explain. Cameron_. Yeah right, I've been here longer than I'm supposed to already…" He clicked "Reply" and wrote "_Not coming b4 __u've__ told me what 4."_

Only seconds later his phone beeped again. This message was shorter than the last one, but it made House grab the cart and limp back towards the hospital, Wilson following him.

_"Joanna has been brought in, unconscious."_

* * *

_I know I said this would be a two-parter but this lookes like it could be a three- or four-parter. Sorry that the writing is a bit slow at the moment but I've recently found out about some House-spoilers that I absolutely didn't like so that makes me a little bummed when I write. Will try not to let it affect the story, though. _

_Some more reviews would be really great. I'm grateful for the ones I'm getting already but still... ;) When it's that few it kinda makes you wonder if you should spend so much time on this. But of course, only review if you want to._


	18. The strangest of days, part three

Thanks for those comments, guys, I really apprechiate it!

* * *

The strangest of days, part 3

"The paramedics found her in her car down on Ewing street," Chase explained to House as they entered the room Joanna had been placed in. "There was blood all over her clothes, and in her mouth. She must have started to throw up blood as she was driving…"

"…and then passed out from the blood loss or the sight of the blood itself," House finished his sentence for him.

"We gave her a blood transfusion," Foreman said. Cameron was standing in the corner of the room, looking worried.

"And there I was, telling you not to try and contact her…She could have been lying there for hours! I'm so sorry, House."

"Don't be," House's voice sounded anything but comforting. "You're more useful if you concentrate on doing your job rather than feeling sorry for yourself or anyone else." He limped over to the bed and looked down on Joanna's pale face. "Now… Gastrointestinal bleeding. What test did you run? Anything that explains this?"

Foreman nodded. "We did a CBC when they brought her in," he said. "It showed extremely low platelets, that's probably what caused it."

"Right…" House mumbled. "That takes us one step further. Now we just have to find the cause of the cause." He turned to Cameron. "You talked to her this morning. Did you notice anything unusual about her?"

Cameron shook her head. "She seemed fine. A little stressed-out, that was all. And maybe a bit tired."

Just then, Joanna began to blink her eyes slowly, before she opened them completely and looked around the room. It took her a few seconds to realize where she was and who was with her.

"Greg?" she said "Where's Wilma?"

"Wilma's fine, Wilson's taking care of her." House grabbed a small flashlight from a drawer and began checking Joanna's pupils. "Can you remember what happened to you?"

"There was blood…" Joanna said in a confused sounding voice. "…coming out of my mouth. It was everywhere. I had to stop the car…" She took a deep breath. "I don't remember anything more after that."

"Well, where were you on your way to, where were you coming from? What have you been doing all day?" House demanded to know. "What is going on?"

Joanna rubbed her forehead with one hand. "My head hurts," she said. "Please don't be so loud. My head really hurts."

Foreman came over to them. "It's fine," he said in a mild voice. "You've been through a lot today, you need some rest. You lost a lot of blood, but we've given you a transfusion, so you should be feeling better soon."

"Yeah," Chase chimed in. His voice was also mild, as if he was talking to a small child. "Questions can wait for later, can't they, Dr. House?"

House got a dark expression on his face and looked as if he was going to object, but then he changed his mind. "All right. Get your rest." He looked around at the others and mumbled "Conference room. Now!"

---

"Gastrointestinal bleeding caused by Thrombocytopenia…" House mumbled as he noted the words on the whiteboard. His team were gathering around the table, and Wilson was sitting on the counter using House's syringe-method to feed Wilma formula. "Now, the question is, what caused her platelets to go down the drain?"

"Now, a low platelet count is quite common for untreated Gaucher's patients…" Foreman suggested.

"Which would have been relevant if she had actually been an untreated Gaucher's patient!" House sounded irritated. "But that's not the case here. I gave her the Cerezyme myself a couple of weeks ago. She's never missed an appointment."

Chase lingered for a second, but decided to ask a question his boss wouldn't appreciate.

"Did you remember to regulate the dose?" he asked. "I mean, it was her first IV since she gave birth, right? Her body would have changed after the pregnancy…"

"Don't you think I know that? I've been changing the amount for her month by month to adjust it to her special condition; of course I corrected it this time as well!" House said, clearly irritated. "And even if I hadn't, your guess would still be a bad one, I'd only have given her too much instead of too little."

"Fine. Sorry," Chase said with a sigh. Cameron rested her head in her hands and sighed as well.

"Why would she suddenly stop reacting to the Cerezyme now?" she said. "It just doesn't make sense."

"She's certainly been through a lifestyle change," Wilson remarked from the counter. "I bet Wilma's been keeping her busy. But I can't see how it could affect her that much."

"An increased amount of activity can cause the patient to require a larger amount of the enzyme," Foreman agreed. "But as you said, the changes would be small, her platelet count wouldn't be this low from stress alone."

House had been watching Wilson feeding Wilma, but now he turned to Chase.

"What was it you said before?" he asked. Chase looked confused.

"Sorry?" he asked.

"No, before that."

"I reminded you that her body had changed since the pregnancy and you got all…"

"That's it!" House interrupted. He got a thoughtful look on his face for a few seconds, then he turned to Cameron. "When Joanna was brought in, did she have her handbag with her?"

"I think so…" Cameron seemed confused by the question. "Her personal belongings are probably still at the reception."

"Chase, go and get it!" House demanded.

"Why?" Chase wondered. House rolled his eyes.

"Do you think it's because I'm going to steal her wallet, or because I think there might be something in there that will help us figure out what's wrong with her? Just go!"

Chase didn't reply, but left the room. Shortly after, he returned with a big black handbag which he tossed over to House.

" Thought so…" House smirked as he pulled a bottle of tablets out of the bag. "Pills. To speed up her combustion."

"She wanted to lose the extra pregnancy weight…" Suddenly Cameron realized how House had found the solution.

"Exactly. These things wipe away the affect of the enzyme like that!" House snapped his fingers. Then he read the label of the bottle out loud. "_Take three pills to or three times pr day…_No wonder she collapsed!" he remarked. "Right, all we have to do is get this poison away from her and she'll be as good as new."

"I'll go and prepare a new dose of Cerezyme…" Foreman got up and headed for the door. Cameron and Chase also got up from their seats and began gathering up their things. House checked his watch.

"Five, almost ten minutes…" he mumbled. "All right, that'll do." He reached out towards Wilson. "Give me the baby. I'm taking her to visit her mummy."

Wilson slid down from the counter and placed Wilma in House's arms. Cameron, who was cleaning of the whiteboard, sent House a glare he couldn't miss, as he pushed the door open with his shoulder and backed out of the room.

"Don't worry, "he smirked at her. "I'll be a good boy."


	19. The strangest of days, part four

_Here comes the second last chapter. The last __one __will also be posted today._

The strangest of days, part four

When House came into Joanna's room, she had fallen asleep, but she woke up when he placed Wilma on her chest.

"Hey there, sweetie…" she mumbled with a yawn as she put her arms around her daughter. "Mummy missed you…"

House pulled out a chair and sat down next to the bed. Joanna looked at him, and then glanced at the clock on the wall.

"You weren't gone long. Did you figure out what's wrong yet? Why I threw up blood?"

House nodded. "Your diet pills don't mix well with your Gaucher's. Stop taking them and you'll be fine."

"I never told you I was on diet pills." Joanna was confused. "How did you find out about them?"

"That's…not important." House quickly changed the subject. "Now, I would like to know where you have been all day. What was so important you had to dump a baby on me while I was at work?"

Joanna looked at him for a few seconds while thinking about how to explain the situation to him. House became impatient.

"Well?" he demanded.

"It was…my mum." Joanna's voice was so low that he could barely hear her. "My adoptive mum, I mean. Remember how I told you she still writes to me every week? She hasn't given up on winning me back.""Yet you refuse to contact her." House remembered Joanna telling him about her mother's letters during the treatment sessions.

"Yes, I've never replied, not once. I even changed my phone number so that she couldn't call me." Joanna turned a little in bed and placed Wilma next to her on the pillow.

"Anyway, over the past few months I have been getting more and more letters. Some weeks one every day. I didn't open any of them, but she just kept sending more. And this morning…" She took a deep breath. "This morning she came to see me."

"From Ohio?" House asked.

"Yeah. I was in the car on my way back from the store. I had Wilma in the back seat." Joanna caressed the baby as she continued. "I was trying to get out of the parking lot when suddenly my mother knocked on the window.""And your mother doesn't know that you have a daughter, right?" House wanted to get some things clear.

"Right. That's why I got out of the car to talk to her, so that she wouldn't see the baby," Joanna explained. "All the time I was praying that Wilma wouldn't begin to cry.""So what did your mother want? All this attention lately, was it just that she suddenly began to miss you more…" House frowned a bit. "…Or was there a reason that she came to see you now?"

Joanna averted her eyes and nodded, but didn't say a word. A silence occurred for a few seconds.

"Did she know about Wilma after all?" House asked. Joanna shook her head slowly.

"No…The thing is…She's dying." She looked back up at House. "She's been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, she doesn't know how long she has left, probably less than six months. That's why she came to talk to me, to get me to forgive her for lying to me all these years, before she…" Joanna couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. "I told her I had to drive by work so I could clear my schedule for the day. Of course, she didn't know I'm on maternity leave. So I got back in my car, drove Wilma here, to you, and met my mother back at her hotel room.""Why didn't you just tell her about the baby?" House didn't quite understand.

"And show her I've been treating her just as badly as she treated me, keeping something from her like that, now that she's ill? I couldn't do that!" Joanna explained. "Also I…" She paused for a bit. "Just because my mum is dying, it doesn't mean all those years where I felt like a miserable stranger in that home are being washed away. Just because I said I forgive her doesn't make it all OK. I came to New Jersey because I wanted to get away from all that, to get a new life. Wilma is a big part of my new life, and I don't want to connect her to the old one, in any way."

Joanna looked up at House, hoping he'd give her a sign he understood, but he just sent her a look that said "Go on."

"So I brought Wilma to you. I knew she'd be safe here. I had nowhere else to take her, so I trusted you'd be able to take care of her."

_Well, the kid is still alive, _House thought to himself. Joanna continued her story.

"So mum and I had a really good talk. I understand more why she acted like she did, now. I don't know if I have truly forgiven her yet, but at least now we both have more peace at heart." She let a finger run down Wilma's cheek. "She asked if I wanted to come home for Christmas, but I told her I had to work, so she's going back tomorrow morning."

Joanna wiped away a tiny tear from the corner of her eye, very quickly, as if she didn't want him to notice. "She looked so different. She just looked…sick. She didn't look like my mother at all. She was tiny and skinny and bald… She got tired and had to go to sleep at five…so I got back in the car to get Wilma. That was when I started throwing up blood. You know the rest."

House nodded. "Yeah…"

Another silence occurred, until Wilma broke it by beginning to whine a little. Joanna put her back up on her chest to make her stop.

"You'll take her home with you tonight, right? I mean, they won't let me keep her here, will they?" she asked. House looked at Joanna's pale face. She seemed absolutely exhausted; she would definitely do well with a break.

"I'll take her home," he agreed. Granted he didn't have a crib or any of Wilma's clothes or the faintest idea of how to make an infant go to sleep, but he'd work it out.

Outside the window, snow was beginning to fall. Joanna sighed by the sight of it.

"It's sad, isn't it?" she said, and had to yawn before she continued. "Wilma's first Christmas, and I'll spend it in a hospital…""You won't," House said. "Now that we've given you the blood transfusion, all you'll need is a small dose of Cerezyme in the morning, and you can go home. You'll need to take it easy for a few days, that's all."

Joanna grinned. "That's great! Do you want to come over?"

He jerked at the question. "What?"

"For Christmas. I was gonna stay at home alone and order take-outs, but if you want to come over I could cook?" Then her smile faded. "Or…you probably have plans with friends or something."

"Kind of," he confirmed.

"Wilson, huh?" Joanna knew him well enough by now to know that Wilson was pretty much the only option. Reluctantly House nodded.

He could see the disappointment instantly darken her face. "But I'm sure Wilson's wife would be really pleased if I broke them," he heard himself say.

"So you'll come? Great!" Joanna smiled and tickled her daughter's side playfully. "Did you hear that, Wilma? Your dad is going to spend Christmas with us."

_There it was again, that word, "dad". __Cameron had called him that earlier, and now Joanna. It just didn't seem right. He hadn't gotten used to thinking of himself that way yet, and he wasn't sure if he ever would. He looked down on his daughter – was she going to call him "dad", just like that, as if it was the most natural thing in the world?_

"One condition," he said. "Stick with the take-outs. It just won't be Christmas without it."

"All right," she grinned. Then she yawned again.

"Maybe it's time I left," House suggested. Joanna nodded and kissed the baby's head before handing her to him.

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" she asked. "I mean, you've never taken her to your home before and…"

"It'll be fine!" he cut her off, a little bit irritated. _All though he had doubts about himself when it came to taking care of Wilma, he didn't want Joanna to doubt him. She did this all day long, what made her think he couldn't? __He had managed throughout most of the day, surely the night couldn't be much of a problem?_

---

"Why won't you go to sleep?!?" House was desperate. It was two in the morning, and for four hours straight, Wilma had been screaming from the top of her lungs. He couldn't understand what was wrong with her, he had fed her, he had changed her, he even tried rocking her to sleep, but that only made her cry more. Now she was lying on his couch, supported by cushions at all ends so that she wouldn't manage to roll down on the floor, and she was still screaming as if someone was torturing her. House wasn't sure how much more he could take.

"If you don't shut up, I have a prescription pad, and I know how to use it!" he tried, but it didn't calm her down one bit. House rubbed his forehead with both hands as he sat down on his piano stool. In pure desperation, he leaned over the instrument and began playing, using all the lower keys in an attempt to block out the screaming. _Good thing I'm not friends with any of the neighbors…_ he thought to himself.

When he had played for only a few seconds, he realized that Wilma wasn't crying anymore. The realization shocked him, and he quickly turned around to see if she was still breathing. Once he took his hands of the keys of the piano, she began to cry again, though not as exuberantly as the last time, more like she was waiting for him to play again.

House turned back to the piano and tried a more quiet version of "A whiter shade of pale". To his extreme relief, once again the music made the child calm down. With a boost of renewed energy, he kept on playing until he was absolutely sure she had fallen asleep. Then, and not a moment sooner, he got up and headed towards the bathroom, to get ready for bed.

_As he reached the door, he turned and took a look around the living room. The entire place was a mess. There where old newspapers lying around in stacks on the floor, on every table there where old records with or without covers, on top of the piano and on most of the shelves and window sills there were at least one empty glass that had once contained whisky or a cup that had once contained coffee, and in the middle of it all, a little girl was sleeping. His girl. In a way, it was kind of nice._


	20. Epilogue

_So, last chapter: _

**Epilogue**

It was the day before Christmas, and the last day of work of the year for the Diagnostics team. Cuddy had somehow managed to persuade them to meet up and finish their charting before going on Christmas leave.

It was five past one that Cameron closed the last file and began clearing off the table. After that, they split up pretty quickly; Chase threw a jacket on, grabbed his duffle bag and headed for the airport in a taxi. He was flying to see old friends down under. Foreman was also in a hurry, he had a long ride ahead of him to get home to his family.

Cameron and House were also eager to go home, but they both stayed behind a bit longer, Cameron so that she could clean the four empty coffee mugs, House so that he could finish the ink tattoo on his wrist that he had been working on throughout the day.

"So, I hear they sent Joanna home yesterday…" Cameron attempted to begin a conversation as she turned on the sink. "She must have been happy to go home with Wilma.""Mhm…" House was done with the tattoo, so he put the cap back on the marker and got up from the chair. He grabbed his coat from the table and had just put it on when Cameron came over to him.

"I just…I have this little thing." She picked her purse up from the table and fished a small wrapped present out of it, which she handed to him. "It's just a little something for Wilma, a bear. I saw it in a shop and I…well."

House gave a grunt which she chose to interpret as a "thank you" as he put the gift in his leather bag. As she went back to the sink, he got some papers out of the bag and looked through them.

"What's that?" Cameron asked. It seemed unbelievable that House would actually bring work home for the holidays.

House lingered for a bit, then he handed her the papers. "Consider showing you these my Christmas gift to you," he said in a sarcastic tone. Cameron skimmed through the papers, and then she looked up at him with a confused look on her face.

"You're applying for shared custody of Wilma?" she asked.

"Not exactly." House took the papers back and put them in the bag. "One day a week and to weekends pr month. It's something, though, isn't it?"

"It really is." Cameron grinned as handed him back the papers.

"I'm getting Joanna to sign them tonight," House told her, without really knowing why. "I'm going over there now.""To celebrate Christmas?" Cameron was shocked.

"No, Easter." House flung the bag over his shoulder and headed for the door. "See you next year. And all this crap…" he pointed at a miniature Santa in the middle of the table, "…had better be gone before I come back to work."

"Merry Christmas to you too," Cameron mumbled with a grin as the door slammed behind him.

---

Christmas can be spent in many ways.

Some sleep through it on an airplane.

Some eat Christmas dinner with parents and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and the whole package in front of a burning fireplace by a gigantic Christmas three.

Some go to their parent's house, being the only child who's there this year, as the others spend this Christmas with their in-laws.

Some sit quietly together in a flawless home eating a perfect dinner, but having nothing to talk about with those around them, wishing their best friend hadn't cancelled on them.

Some stay at work.

Some eat Chinese take-away and, after an tongue-tied, awkward beginning of the evening, decide to play their very own invention, the "Ask me a personal question"-game, where the questions get more and more crude as the night goes by, and the laughter raises until it wakes up the baby in the next room.

And…some sleep through most of the evening, but then wakes up from laughter in the next room, and, stubborn and determined as she is, (she's got that from her father), decides to keep screaming until she gets to hear some good music again.

* * *

_So, that was it. As you can see I chose to end it on a happy note, I wasn't really sure if I was going to do that, but in the end all my other ideas just got too sad__, so I chose this solution._

_I am thinking about writing a sequel, so the stuff that weren't resolved in this chapter might be resolved there._

_Thanks for reading this story!_


	21. Sequel up

**I just wanted to add that I posted a sequel. It's called Not Another Long Lost Kid Story .**


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